Six Stolen Picasso Prints Found Hidden Under Clothes and Toolboxes on the French Riviera

Six stolen Picasso prints have been found hidden under a pile of clothes and toolboxes in an apartment on the French Riviera, more than a month after they were taken from a restaurant wall. ArtNews reported the recovery.

The prints usually hang at L'Amandier, a restaurant in Mougins, a hilltop village inland from Cannes. Mougins is also where Pablo Picasso lived when he died in 1973.

The theft happened at around 2 a.m. on October 1. Two men wearing gloves and masks came in through a door and took the prints in under a minute, according to ArtNews.

The restaurant's owner, Matthieu Autant, found them missing that morning and alerted the local authorities. The case was handed to officers in Cannes.

On November 3, 40 gendarmes searched two apartments. Gendarmes are France's military police, and they also handle everyday policing in many towns and rural areas. The officers found the stolen prints during the searches.

Seven men aged between 18 and 30 were arrested. Three of them were described as burglars and four as accomplices, ArtNews reported.

ArtNews put the value of the prints at the equivalent of a little more than US$112,000. That figure is a market value, not the amount any buyer paid.

For a small restaurant, the loss meant more than a lost wall display. The prints had been part of the place's identity, and the owner had raised the alarm within hours of finding the gap. The men who searched two apartments in early November ended a search that began with a door left open to two masked intruders.

Picasso's prints are typically sold as multiples, meaning many identical copies are made from the same printing plate. That is one reason their value sits far below that of his unique paintings. Records of the recovery did not say who owned the prints or when they would return to Mougins.