STOLEN PICASSO PAINTING RECOVERED IN AMSTERDAM
Arthur Brand, an Amsterdam-based independent arts crime investigator, has found a Pablo Picasso painting that was stolen from Saudi Arabian billionaire Sheikh Abdul Mohsen’s yacht in the south of France in 1999, the New York Times reports. The detective was able to track down the work after he received a tip from “two persons with contacts in the underworld.”
Brand’s sources informed him that the 1938 painting Portrait of Dora Maar was in the hands of a businessman in the Netherlands. The businessman had allegedly accepted the work as payment and did not know what to do with it. The two unidentified persons were able to obtain the work and delivered it to the detective.
After inspecting the piece, Brand hung the work on his wall while he waited for a Picasso specialist from Pace Gallery in New York to arrive. The expert confirmed the piece was authentic before it was turned over to insurance handlers.
