Spanish police are investigating the disappearance of a small painting by world-renowned artist Pablo Picasso, titled "Still Life with Guitar" (Naturaleza muerta con guitarra), valued at around €600,000.
The artwork went missing while being transported from Madrid to an exhibition in Granada, southern Spain.
According to The Guardian, the watercolor and pencil piece, created by Picasso in 1919 and measuring just 12.7 cm by 9.8 cm, was due to be displayed in a new exhibition organized by the Caja Granada Foundation.
The show, titled "Still Life: The Eternity of Immobility," opened last week, but the Picasso work never arrived.
The painting belongs to a private collector in Madrid and was among several artworks loaned to the foundation.
The shipment traveled by bus from the capital on Friday, October 3.
In a statement, the Caja Granada Foundation said that upon the bus’s arrival at 10 a.m., the contents were unloaded and inspected.
Some items were not correctly labeled, making precise verification difficult, but the delivery was signed off before the bus and its crew departed.
The artworks remained under video surveillance throughout the weekend, and unpacking began the following Monday.
The foundation added in a statement that after the unpacking was completed, the works were distributed across the exhibition hall.
It was then that the curator and the head of the exhibitions department noticed that one piece was missing, a small watercolor by Pablo Picasso titled "Still Life with Guitar."
The foundation reported the disappearance to Spain’s National Police.
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