A priceless Picasso painting has vanished! The art world is reeling after a Pablo Picasso masterpiece disappeared en route to a highly anticipated exhibition. But how could such a valuable piece of art simply vanish? Spanish authorities are now scrambling to solve this perplexing mystery.
The missing artwork is a 1919 gouache piece titled "Still Life with Guitar" (or "Naturaleza muerta con guitarra" in Spanish). It's a relatively small work, measuring only about 5 inches by 3.9 inches. Despite its size, this miniature marvel was insured for a staggering 600,000 euros, which is roughly $700,000. The painting was scheduled to be a star attraction at a temporary exhibition opening October 9th at the CajaGranada Cultural Center in Granada, southern Spain. The CajaGranada Foundation, which owns the cultural center, confirmed the painting's disappearance.
The plot thickens: According to a press statement released by the CajaGranada Foundation, the Friday before the grand opening, a transportation company's van arrived at the cultural center, carrying the precious cargo from Madrid. Here's where it gets controversial... every precaution seemed to be taken. All the artworks were moved in one fell swoop from the van to a freight elevator. All the transportation employees rode the elevator together from the basement (-1 floor) to the first floor (floor 1). The items were then moved from the elevator to the exhibition hall itself, all under the watchful eye of video surveillance.
After a thorough check to confirm the origins of each package, the exhibition manager and the transportation company agreed to sign off on the delivery. The unpacking was scheduled for the following Monday. Throughout the weekend, the packages remained untouched under constant video surveillance. Monday morning, at 8:30 a.m., the unpacking began. The center has confirmed that the video recordings have been meticulously reviewed, and no suspicious activity was observed during the entire weekend.
By mid-morning, the CajaGranada Foundation team had finished unpacking and carefully positioning all the artworks in the exhibition space. And this is the part most people miss... It was only then that the exhibition curator and head of exhibitions made the shocking discovery: Picasso's "Still Life with Guitar" was nowhere to be found! The foundation immediately alerted the police. Remember those video recordings from the weekend? They were re-checked. Still nothing.
"An investigation is currently underway to determine the precise time and location of the painting's disappearance," Granada police stated to CNN. The missing artwork has been added to the international database of stolen artworks, but currently, there is no international police cooperation requested from Granada. This raises questions. Was it an inside job? Or did the theft occur before the painting even arrived at the cultural center?
Unfortunately, Picasso's works have a history of being targeted by thieves. Some of his paintings have fetched astronomical prices at auction, with one reaching a staggering $179 million. In 2019, a Dutch art detective successfully recovered Picasso's 1938 masterpiece, "Portrait of Dora Maar," worth $28 million, a full 20 years after it was stolen from a Saudi sheikh's yacht off the French coast. In 2021, Greek police recovered Picasso’s “Head of a Woman” and Piet Mondrian’s “Landscape with a Mill” nearly a decade after their daring theft from the National Art Gallery in Athens. And just last year, Belgian police discovered Picasso's stolen painting "Tête" in a basement in Antwerp.
This latest disappearance adds another chapter to the ongoing saga of stolen Picasso artworks. It begs the question: Is it even possible to truly protect such valuable and sought-after pieces? Given the apparent security measures in place, how could this painting have vanished without a trace? Could the painting have been switched with a replica before it even reached Granada? Or was there a flaw in the security system that was exploited? What do you think happened? Share your theories in the comments below!
