Art work that vanished en route from Madrid to Granada may never have made it on the van in the first place
Fittingly enough for a still life, it would appear that the small Picasso painting that triggered a police investigation after apparently vanishing while en route from Madrid to Granada for an exhibition earlier this month may never have moved from its pick-up point.
Officers from Spain’s Policía Nacional force began searching for the gouache and pencil work Naturaleza muerta con guitarra (Still Life with Guitar) after it failed to arrive on a van that was bringing a consignment of loaned exhibits from the capital to the CajaGranada foundation on 3 October.
The picture, which was painted in 1919 and small enough to fit into a handbag, is thought to be worth €600,000 (£525,000). Had it reached its destination, it would have been one of the stars of the foundation’s Still Life: the Eternity of the Inert exhibition. But it never did.
The foundation said that although some of the works were carefully packaged they were not correctly numbered, making “an exhaustive check” impossible. The delivery was nonetheless signed off and the van and its crew went on their way.
