MADRID —
Spanish customs agents seized a
Picasso sketch worth over 450,000 euros from a
passenger who arrived at Ibiza airport without declaring the artwork, Spain’s
customs office said Monday.
اضافة اعلان
Agents found the
1966 sketch, dubbed “Trois personnages”, on July 5 in the suitcase of a man who
arrived in the holiday island on a flight from Zurich, the office said in a statement.
The passenger
said the artwork was a simple copy and presented the agents with a handwritten
receipt of 1,500
Swiss francs (1,515 euros) which he said he had paid for the
sketch.
But customs
agents found another receipt in the bottom of his suitcase from a Zurich art
gallery for 450,000 Swiss francs (454,000 euros) with a reference to a work by
Pablo Picasso called “Trois personnages”.
According to a
preliminary analysis carried out by art experts, the sketch is indeed a work by
the Spanish painter and “the price charged by the gallery is in line with the
market price,” the statement said.
This first
assessment will have to be confirmed by a “more exhaustive” analysis using
“advanced techniques”, it added.
The passenger
faces possible charges of smuggling for failing to declare an object of value
when he entered Spain.
The customs
office said they had singled him out for questioning after receiving a tip from
their Swiss counterparts that he was transporting a piece of art in
“suspicious” conditions.
Considered to be one of
most famous artists of the 20th century, Picasso spent the bulk of his long
life in France, dying there in 1973.
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