A valuable Pablo Picasso painting has mysteriously disappeared while being transported to an exhibition in southern Spain, prompting a police investigation into the theft of the artwork valued at approximately $700,000. The 1919 gouache work "Still Life with Guitar" was scheduled to be displayed at the CajaGranada Cultural Center in Granada as part of a temporary exhibition that opened on October 9.
The small but valuable artwork, measuring just 5 inches by 3.9 inches (12.7 centimeters by 9.8 centimeters), belongs to a private collector and was insured for an estimated 600,000 euros. Spanish authorities confirmed that the piece vanished sometime during the carefully monitored transport and delivery process from Madrid to the Granada cultural center.
According to a detailed statement released by the CajaGranada Foundation, which operates the cultural center, the transportation process appeared to follow standard security protocols. On the Friday before the exhibition's scheduled opening, a delivery van from the transportation company arrived at the cultural center as planned to deliver multiple artworks from Madrid. All the pieces were moved in a single, continuous operation from the van to a freight elevator, which transported all the company employees simultaneously from the basement level to the first floor.
The items were then transferred from the elevator to the exhibition hall under constant video surveillance, according to the foundation's account. After verifying the origins and documentation of the different packages, the exhibition manager and the transportation company agreed that the delivery would be officially signed for before the actual unpacking of the pieces, which was scheduled for the following Monday.
Throughout the weekend, the packages remained under continuous video surveillance while awaiting the unpacking process. Staff members began opening and examining the artworks at 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning, working systematically through each piece. The foundation emphasized that security recordings from the entire weekend period were reviewed and showed no incidents or suspicious activity during that time.
By mid-morning on Monday, the CajaGranada Foundation staff had completed the unpacking process and had begun positioning the various works in their designated locations within the exhibition space. It was at this crucial moment that the exhibition curator and head of exhibitions made the shocking discovery that Picasso's "Still Life with Guitar," known by its Spanish title "Naturaleza muerta con guitarra," was completely missing from the collection.
The foundation immediately reported the missing artwork to local police authorities, who have launched a comprehensive investigation into the disappearance. Granada police confirmed in a statement that they are actively working to determine exactly when and where the valuable painting vanished during the transport and delivery process. The missing work has been entered into the international database of stolen artworks, though police noted that no international cooperation efforts are currently being coordinated from Granada at this time.
This incident adds to a troubling pattern of thefts targeting Picasso's works, which have become increasingly valuable at auction, with some pieces fetching up to $179 million. The artist's paintings have frequently been targeted by art thieves over the years, leading to several high-profile recovery operations by international law enforcement agencies.
In recent years, authorities have successfully recovered several stolen Picasso works through dedicated investigations. In 2019, a Dutch art detective recovered Picasso's 1938 masterpiece "Portrait of Dora Maar," worth $28 million, approximately 20 years after it was stolen from the yacht of a Saudi sheikh off the southern coast of France. Two years later, in 2021, Greek police successfully recovered both Picasso's "Head of a Woman" and Piet Mondrian's "Landscape with a Mill" nearly a decade after they were taken during a daring heist at the National Art Gallery in Athens.
Just last year, Belgian police discovered another stolen Picasso painting titled "Tête" in a basement in the city of Antwerp, demonstrating the ongoing international efforts to recover stolen artworks. These recoveries highlight both the persistent threat to valuable artworks and the dedicated efforts of law enforcement agencies worldwide to combat art theft and return stolen pieces to their rightful owners or institutions.
