A missing painting by the iconic Pablo Picasso has been found by Belgian police in a basement in Antwerp – more than a decade after it first went missing. Fabled Spanish artist Picasso’s piece of work called Tête had originally gone missing in 2010 after it was stolen from a collector in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The piece was taken alongside Belarusian and French artist Marc Chagall’s piece L’homme en prière.
The pair of paintings are worth an estimated £710,000 ($900,000) and were tracked down to the basement of a building in Antwerp on Tuesday, police said.
According to reports, alongside the paintings a haul of jewelry worth £537,000 ($680,000) was also taken.
The investigation was launched after police were informed that a Belgian national had put the pieces on sale.
The local prosecutor noted the main suspect had subsequently been arrested.
According to the authorities, “checks and police resources implemented during 2023 made it possible to establish that the suspect was indeed in possession of the works sought and that he could have them at his home or at the home of one of his relations”.
The police added that “although confessing to possessing the paintings, the suspect refused to communicate where he had stored them”.
Picasso is considered one of the the most influential artists of the 20th century, known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore.
Among his most famous works included 1907’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and the anti-war painting Guernica from 1937.
Chagall was described by art critic Robert Hughes as “the quintessential Jewish artist of the 20th century”m while art historian Michael J. Lewis said the artist was considered to be “the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists”.
