Picasso painting recovered after being stolen for more than nine years
A painting donated by Pablo Picasso to Greece will be displayed at the newly refurbished National Gallery in Athens after being stolen for more than nine years and the arrest of a 49-year-old construction worker as a suspect.
Authorities said on Tuesday that Picasso’s “Head of the Woman” and a work by Dutch painter Pete Mondrian, “Stammer Mill with Summer House,” were stolen in January 2012 from the Athens National Gallery.
They were recovered, wrapped in plastic sheets and hidden in a dry riverbed outside Athens after the suspect was detained for questioning.
Picasso’s cube work was donated to Greece in 1949 “in honor of the Greek people” for resisting the Nazi occupation led by Germany in World War II.
Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said: “This painting is of special importance and emotional value, which the Great Painter personally dedicated to the Greek people for their struggle against the (occupied) Fascist and Nazi forces and bore the gift of the handwritten document.”
For this reason, it was impossible to sell or even display this painting, as it would be immediately identified as stolen from the National Gallery.
The National Exhibition was recently reopened after a major refurbishment that lasted nine years and was delayed for several months because of the pandemic. My delegates did not say when the works retrieved for the show would be returned.
Police said that the suspect was a Greek national and believed to have acted alone. They did not give details on how the suspect’s whereabouts were determined, but indicated that the two had been recently transferred to the dry riverbed.
