Picasso and Mondrian paintings stolen

It took all of seven minutes for thieves to make their way through a balcony door and lay their hands on precious paintings by Mondrian and Picasso from the National Art Gallery located in Athens.

In the latest case of art theft, reported by Associated Press (AP), the police sources were quoted as saying that the thieves set off alarms intentionally to catch the guards off-guard, lulling them into disabling a sensor at the museum site. One alarm subsequently went off, but they arrived too late.

The paintings stolen were a representational work of a riverside windmill by Mondrian done in 1905, the 16th-century painter Guglielmo Caccia’s pen & ink drawing of St. Diego de Alcala, and Picasso’s cubist female bust with a dedication, reading ‘in homage to the Greek people’. Another painting by Mondrian was removed from the frame but dropped as the burglars fled. Incidentally, the museum was just starting renovation work.

In December 20101, in another case of daring art theft, a gang drove off in a van filled with works by Pablo Picasso and renowned sculptors Fernando Botero and Eduardo Chillida after breaking into a warehouse near Madrid. The thieves took 22 sculptures and paintings worth an estimated €5m from the warehouse in Getafe at the weekend. They drove off using a key left in the van's glove department.

Only about half of the works, which were being returned to Spain from a German gallery, were insured. According to David Fernández of Madrid’s Juan Gris gallery was quoted as saying: "I am furious and upset. A day had already been decided for some of these works to be delivered to his gallery and five more in Madrid and Barcelona . Nothing like this has happened to us in four decades."

According to The Guardian news report, the van that carried these works had been parked at that point of time inside a warehouse just having arrived from the Stefan Röpke art gallery in Germany. The structure (warehouse) belonged to the Crisóstomo transport company. Three thieves managed to break into it during midday hours.