A police raid on suspected drug dealers turned up a stolen painting by Pablo Picasso worth tens of millions of dollars.
That’s because it is reported to depict Picasso’s “golden muse” Marie-Therese Walter, a French model and lover of the famous painter whom he credited with one of the most productive periods in his career.
The raid was carried out in Champigny-sur-Marne, near Paris, at a house belonging to the aunt of the chief suspect. There, police found bundles of cash, cannabis, some $230,000 worth of luxury fashion items, and the painting.
Sonja Anderson at Smithsonian Magazine shares that the series of painting depicting Walter as the model includes some of the highest earning paintings of Picasso’s ever to move at auction; Femme à la montre selling for $139 million, for example.
The four suspects arrested in connection with the bust appeared in court where they confessed to several thefts of material from a storage warehouse in Paris where one of them worked as a security guard.
Art Newspaper, reporting on the subject via a source with the police, said that the theft appeared to be “opportunistic,” as the security guard likely found the Picasso, took it, “and, as it often happens in such cases… had no idea what to do with it.”
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The painting was in the storage warehouse after having been authenticated by Claude Picasso, Pablo’s son and executor of his estate, before it was sold at auction to a buyer in Singapore.
Picasso first met Walter as she was emerging from a Parisian subway station in 1927. She claims that he approached her and said: “You have an interesting face, I’d like to paint a portrait of you. I am Picasso.”
Despite nearly 30 years of age separating them, the modeling role quickly turned into a romantic relationship that lasted 8 years, during which time Walter gave birth to a daughter, Maya.
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