Picasso book of sketches stolen from Paris museum
Authorities said on Tuesday that a red notebook of 33 pencil drawings by Pablo Picasso has been stolen from a specially locked glass case in the Paris museum that bears the painter’s name. The book is said to be worth 8 million euros. The theft took place around Tuesday morning at the Picasso Museum; the glass case where the artifact was kept can only be opened with a specific instrument.
A police official who prefers to be unnamed says that a museum employee discovered the notebook missing Tuesday morning from display case. To make matters worse, there was no surveillance system in the room where the notebook was displayed. According to the Culture Ministry, the stolen shiny red sketchbook with the word "Album" inscribed in gold on the front dated from 1917 to 1924. The Picasso Museum is dedicated to the Spanish-born painter who was a founder of the Cubist movement and is the leading 20th-century artist.
In August 2007, French investigators recovered two Picasso paintings and a drawing worth a total of more than $66 million stolen from the home of the artist’s granddaughter in an overnight heist six months earlier. Two of three suspects were carrying the rolled-up canvases as police closed in. An art dealer tipped off the police after the theft at the luxury Paris apartment of Diana Widmaier-Picasso and suspected the thieves were looking to sell their loot.
In 1994, seven Picasso paintings worth around $44 million were stolen from a Zurich gallery. They were recovered in 2000, and a Swiss man and two Italians were jailed for larceny. The stolen paintings included Picasso’s "Seated Woman," and "Christ of Montmartre," which had been stolen from the gallery before, in the year 1991.
The market for stolen art is valued billions of dollars yearly.
