Dutch art sleuth finds stolen work of Picasso

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March 27, 2019

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Dutch art sleuth finds stolen work of Picasso

Source: AFP | 00:05 UTC+8 March 27, 2019 |

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A Dutch art detective dubbed the “Indiana Jones of the Art World” has struck again, finding a Picasso work worth 25 million euros (US$28.24 million) stolen from a Saudi sheikh’s yacht on the French Riviera in 1999.

Arthur Brand said he had handed back the 1938 masterpiece entitled “Portrait of Dora Maar,” also known as “Buste de Femme (Dora Maar)” to an insurance firm earlier this month.

The discovery of the rare portrait of Maar, one of Pablo Picasso’s most influential mistresses, is the culmination of a four-year investigation into the burglary on the luxury yacht Coral Island, as she lay anchored in Antibes.

Two decades after its theft and with no clues to its whereabouts, the French police were stumped — and the portrait, which once hung in the Spanish master’s home until his death in 1973, was feared lost forever.

But after a four-year trail which led through the Dutch criminal underworld, two intermediaries turned up at Brand’s Amsterdam home 10 days ago with the missing picture.

“They had the Picasso, now valued at 25 million euros wrapped in a sheet and black rubbish bags with them,” Brand said.

It was yet another success for Brand, who hit the headlines last year for returning a stolen 1,600-year-old mosaic to Cyprus. He won fame in 2015 after finding “Hitler’s Horses,” two bronze statues made by Nazi sculptor Joseph Thorak — a discovery about which he had a book out earlier this month.

The theft of the Picasso, valued at around US$7 million at the time, baffled French police, sent the super-rich scurrying to update boat security and led to an offer of a big reward.

In 2015, Brand first got wind that a “Picasso stolen from a ship” was doing the rounds in the Netherlands. It turned out the painting had entered the criminal circuit, where it circled for many years “often being used as collateral, popping up in a drug deal here, four years later in an arms deal there.”

It took several years and a few dead ends before pinning down that it was actually the Picasso stolen from Saudi Arabian billionaire Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Abdulmalik al-Sheikh’s yacht as the mega-cruiser was being refurbished, Brand said.

Brand put out word on the street he was looking for “Buste de Femme (Dora Maar)” and in early March he struck gold.

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Dutch art sleuth finds stolen work of Picasso

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