Portugal’s Judicial Police have recovered 278 works of art and artifacts allegedly belonging to a United States citizen who died in 2024, after the collection was found in the possession of a former employee.
Amongst the items seized from the culprit were artworks attributed to 27 different artists, including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, David Hockney, Albrecht Dürer, Pierre Bonnard and Juan Downey.
The operation involved paintings, lithographs, screen prints, sculptures, and objects of archaeological origin, among other cultural assets. Some pieces appear to date from artistic and architectural productions created in the period “ in the years before Christ”, according to a PJ source, spanning both Prehistory and Antiquity.
The recovered collection includes sculptures dated between the 1st century BC and the 18th century, as well as archaeological artefacts from the Neolithic and Greco-Roman periods. The items are said to originate from a wide geographical range, including Persia, the Middle East, Central and South America, Africa, China, and Syria.
The works were recovered following a series of residential and non-residential searches carried out in Penalva do Castelo, in close cooperation with experts from the Museu Nacional Machado de Castro.
Investigations are ongoing, with the inquiry being led by the Viseu department of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (DIAP).
Source: LUSA
