Picasso painting stolen 20 years ago found in Amsterdam

Busto de Mujer (‘Bust of a Woman’) was owned by Saudi Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Abdulmalik, who bought it from Pace Gallery in New York in the 1980s for an undisclosed sum.

When it was stolen from his yacht in France in 1999, it was reported to be worth €4 million.

As time went on and the painting failed to appear, French authorities were forced to close the case since, in

the majority of cases – according to Brand – when a major work of such high value vanishes into thin air, it is usually because the thieves were unable to sell it as they could not prove its authenticity or its origin, meaning they end up simply destroying it to avoid being caught.

The owner had offered a €400,000 reward for its safe return – 10% of its estimated value at the time of its loss – but after giving up all hope of its ever being recovered, received a €4m payout from his insurance company.

As a result of the claim, the now-recovered painting legally belongs to the insurance company, which is due to put it up for auction.

A United States-based art expert is currently in the Dutch capital analysing the picture to verify its condition before offering it for sale again to Abdulmalik.

Its value is said to have multiplied more than six times in the last two decades, and is now thought to be worth up to €25m.

Busto de Mujer is a cubist portrait of painter Dora Maar, who was in a relationship with Málaga-born artist Pablo Picasso during the 1930s and 1940s.

It was created in 1938, a year after Picasso completed his most famous work, the colossal panel Guernika, which is on display at Madrid’s Reina Sofía art museum.

Art investigator Arthur Brand, a specialist detective with extensive experience, has been on the trail of the missing picture since 2015, but even he had given it up for lost.

In about 10% of cases, some hope remains of a painting’s recovery, since thieves sometimes hand them over to a mafia organisation in settlement of a debt and the picture will then pass from owner to owner.

Brand says the Picasso painting changed hands at least 20 times in as many years.

He had heard in 2015 that the picture was circulating through the Amsterdam underworld and that in 2002 it had been handed over to a mafia organisation involved in drug-dealing and weapons-trafficking as guarantee for a debt.

Brand contacted police in The Netherlands and France, but as they had both closed the case, they did not react to the news.

“As there are so many stolen Picassos, they didn’t really know which one I was talking about at first – plus, the theft happened before the ‘boom’ of the internet started, so it was difficult to track its details,” Brand explains.

“But I did some digging and found out which painting it was and how important it was to the artist himself.

“When he died, his family sold it to a merchant who then sold it on to an Arab Sheikh, who kept it on his yacht.”

A few weeks ago, Brand learned that a dealer had bought the painting without knowing what it was and that, once he discovered it was stolen property, contacted Brand for advice.

At first, the dealer did not want to hand it over as he was scared of legal problems through having bought and possessed stolen goods.

“We knew he had nothing to do with the theft,” Brand explains.

“There didn’t seem much sense in investigating, either – we’d never reach the thieves, because the canvas had changed hands so many times. So instead, we reached a deal with him: he would hand it over to me and there would be no investigation.”

Busto de Mujer has never formed part of any exhibition, meaning very few people have ever been able to admire it – but Brand said he spent the whole night admiring it in his house before the insurance company collected it the following morning.

Sheikh Abdulmalik will be offered it back, on the condition he refunds the €4m received as a claim payout.

Brand’s track record at tracing lost and stolen artworks has led to successful recoveries of Spanish pieces in the past – the most recent was in January this year, when he found two stone sculptures dating back to the Visigoth era, which had been stolen in 2004 from a chapel in Santa María de Lara (Burgos province).

After nine years of searches throughout Europe, they failed to reappear, until Brand traced them to the UK.

They had been abandoned and left to the mercy of the elements in the garden of a wealthy British family.

“I’m so excited. We’re talking about the greatest artist of the 20^th century and this painting is one of his most important works – and his personal favourite,” enthused Brand.

“Picasso never signed it, because he never wanted to sell it. He kept it safe in his house until he died.”

A self-confessed lover of Spanish art, the Dutch investigator took a selfie with the recovered picture for his Twitter page, @Brand_Arthur (shown above).