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A Dutch art detective says he has helped recover a stolen Pablo Picasso painting.
Arthur Brand, who has been dubbed “the Indiana Jones of the art world”, said in an interview with broadcaster RTL that he was passed in confidence the 1938 Buste de Femme , which portrays Picasso’s fellow artist and lover Dora Maar.
The painting was stolen from a private Saudi owner’s yacht in France in 1999.
“You fear that it will be fake, but when I had it in my hands, I knew right away: this is real,” Brand said.
Having received the painting in black trash bags at his house, Brand said he contacted police and handed it to an insurance company for possible return to its owner.
Show all 20 1 /2020 best Van Gogh paintings 20 best Van Gogh paintings Sunflowers 1886, oil on canvas. The mysterious, so-called 'Lausanne' Sunflowers – the first Arles Sunflowers painting – with turquoise background. It was created in the summer of 1886 at Van Gogh's studio at Arles, north of Marseille in Provence. It has not been show to the public since 1948.
Public domain
20 best Van Gogh paintings The Starry Night 1889, oil on canvas. This painting depicts the view from the window of Van Gogh's asylum room of Saint-Remy-de-Provence. It is one of the most recognised paintings in the history of Western culture.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Irises 1889, oil on canvas. The most recognised of several iris paintings made by Van Gogh at the Saint Paul-de-Mausole asylum, in the last year before his death in 1890.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Self-Portrait 1889, oil on canvas. Van Gogh painted over 43 self-portraits, paintings and drawings over a period of 10 years. He wrote to his sister: 'I am looking for a deeper likeness than that obtained by a photographer' and to his brother: 'People say, and I am willing to believe it, that it is hard to know yourself. But it is not easy to paint yourself either. The portraits painted by Rembrandt are more like a revelation.'
20 best Van Gogh paintings At Eternity’s Gate Oil on canvas, 1890. This painting was completed in early May, when Van Gogh was suffering a severe relapse of poor health – two months before his death. It is based on a pencil drawing, 'Worn Out', from a series of studies he made of a war veteran in 1882.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Cafe Terrace at Night Oil on canvas, 1888. This work was the first in a trilogy of paintings that featured starlit skies, completed over two years. Van Gogh was enthusiastic about the painting and wrote to his sister: 'Here you have a night picture without any black in it, done with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green, and in these surroundings the lighted square acquires a pale sulphur and greenish citron-yellow colour. It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot... I find satisfaction in painting things immediately.'
20 best Van Gogh paintings The Night Cafe 1888, oil on canvas. The five customers in the scene have described as 'three drunks and derelicts in a large public room... huddled down in sleep or stupor.' Van Gogh told his brother that the cafe owner, Ginoux, had taken so much money it was time to take his revenge by painting the place.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Bedroom in Arles Oil on canvas, 1888. Three authentic versions of this painting were made, easily discernible from the different paintings on the right wall.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Van Gogh's Chair Oil on canvas, 1888. This painting is currently at the National Gallery in London. It was completed after Van Gogh moved from the Hotel Carrel to the Cafe de la Gare at Arles, south France.
20 best Van Gogh paintings The Potato Eaters 1885, oil on canvas. Van Gogh chose this deliberately tricky composition to prove himself as a figure painter, wanting to show the way 'they have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish... that they have thus honestly earned their food'.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Road with Cypress and Star 1890, oil on canvas. Also known as Country Road, this was the last painting Van Gogh made in Saint Remy, It is part of the large Van Gogh collection at the Kroller-Muller Museum at Otterlo in the Netherlands.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Starry Night Over the Rhone 1888, oil on canvas. Another of Van Gogh's paintings of Arles at nighttime – painted at a spot on the bank of the Rhone a few minutes walk from the Yellow House, which he was renting at the time.
20 best Van Gogh paintings The Pink Peach Tree 1888, oil on canvas. In a short space of time during his first weeks at Arles, Van Gogh painted some fifteen orchards, hoping they would sell well because his subject, the glorious blossoms of the flowering trees, had the power to 'cheer everyone up'.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Self Portrait with a Grey Felt Hat 1887, oil on canvas. This self portrait is slightly unusual because Van Gogh's face is angled to face straight towards the observer. Most of them depicted the face as it appeared in the mirror he used, so the right side seen in the image was actually the left side of his face.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Almond Blossoms 1888 - 1890, oil on canvas. Van Gogh loved flowering trees, which to him symbolised hope and new life. This painting was created to celebrate the birth of his nephew and namesake, the son of his brother Theo and sister-in-law Jo.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Woman Sewing This was part of Van Gogh's preparation for The Potato Eaters, where he attempted to paint a figure against the light. He struggled, telling his brother Theo: 'It's a difficult effect', yet he succeeded in a strong contrast with the almost-black head of the woman and the use of white for the window, which focuses the gaze mainly on the woman's hands.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat Oil on canvas, 1890. This painting, one of several versions by Van Gogh, has exchanged hands several times and was bought by Stephen Wynn in 1997 for $47.5 million. Seven years later, it was sold to American investor Steven A Cohen for more than $100 million.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Two Cypresses Oil on canvas, 1889. In the cypress trees of Saint Remy, Van Gogh found beauty "as regards lines and proportions, like an Egyptian obelisk". He was enraptured but also challenged: 'It's the dark patch in a sun-drenched landscape, but it's one of the most interesting dark notes, the most difficult to hit off exactly that I can imagine'.
20 best Van Gogh paintings The Red Vineyard 1888, oil on canvas. Art historians believe this is the only Van Gogh painting he managed to sell during his lifetime, and has been listed among his major works. It was sold in Brussels for 400 francs (about £3,000) to Anna Boch, an impressionist painter and art collector from Belgium, who was the sister of Van Gogh's friend Eugene Boch.
20 best Van Gogh paintings Wheatfield with Crows 1890, oil on canvas.Commonly regarded as Van Gogh's final painting (with some doubt from art historians due to lack of historical records). Around 10 July Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo and wife Jo Bonger to say he had painted another three large canvases since visiting them in Paris the week before. Two of them, he said, expressed sadness and what he called 'extreme loneliness', but he also believed them to show the healthy and fortifying nature of the countryside.
“I had it hanging in my house for one night,” he said, estimating its value at €25m euros ($28m and £21m). “That was exciting ... It’s fantastic, so unbelievably beautiful.”
Brand said he had first heard the painting was in the Netherlands in 2015. He told the broadcaster he believes it may have been traded back and forth “20 times” in the Amsterdam underworld, used as collateral in drugs and weapons deals.
He said the final owner was a real estate agent who wanted to be rid of it after he realised it was stolen. Brand said two men contacted him and arranged the drop-off at his house.
Dutch police told local media they were not taking further action, as the painting has been returned and the statute of limitations in the 1999 theft has expired.
Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events The owner, identified as Saudi businessman Abdulmohsen Abdulmalik Al al-Sheikh, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Additional reporting by agencies.
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