|
"Head of a Young Woman", painted by the Malaga-born artist in
1906 and valued at more than 25 million euros (around $28
million), was impounded by French customs officials last month
on board a yacht in the Corsican port of Calvi.
Deemed a national treasure by Spain, whose high court slapped an
export ban on it, the picture has been the subject of legal
wrangling for several months.
Both painting and vessel are owned by billionaire Jaime Botin,
part of the family dynasty that ran Santander for several
generations and brother of the bank's late chairman Emilio Botin.
Following an application by auctioneer Christie's, Jaime Botin
tried to export the work to London but was blocked by the court
in May, a ruling his law firm said he was contesting. A later
attempt to move it from Corsica to Switzerland prompted French
customs to seize it.
The painting will be held under judicial oversight in Madrid's
main modern art museum, the Reina Sofia, until its status is
clarified, the interior ministry said. It will not be on public
display.
Members of Spain's military police traveled to Corsica on
Tuesday to retrieve the painting, the ministry added. It said
the painting had been valued at 26.2 million euros.
Spanish cultural authorities have argued the work is a rare
example of how ancient Iberian art influenced Picasso, who
painted it around the time he stayed in a small mountain village
in the Pyrenees.
Botin's lawyer Rafael Mateu de Ros said in an emailed statement
that the painting had been kept on a British-registered boat and
should therefore not come under the jurisdiction of Spanish
authorities.
"The painting was painted abroad, it was purchased abroad and it
has always been kept overseas. There the painting cannot have
been exported (from Spain), legally or illegally," he said.
Arguably the most famous artist of the 20th century, Pablo
Picasso spent the bulk of his long life in France, dying there
in 1973.
($1 = 0.9036 euros)
(Reporting by Sarah White; editing by John Stonestreet)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
|
