{"id":512994,"date":"2026-06-22T18:11:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T18:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/512994\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T18:11:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T18:11:24","slug":"french-police-stumble-upon-13m-stolen-picasso-painting-during-drug-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/512994\/","title":{"rendered":"French police \u2018stumble upon \u00a313m stolen Picasso painting during drug raid\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

French drug police <\/a>made a stunning discovery during a routine narcotics raid<\/a> in Paris<\/a>, stumbling upon a stolen Picasso painting<\/a> worth up to \u20ac15m (\u00a313m).<\/p>\n

Officers in the Brigade des Stup\u00e9fiants discovered the artwork on 15 June while carrying out a routine search of a house owned by the aunt of a suspected drug dealer in the southeastern suburb of Ormesson-sur-Marne.<\/p>\n

The artwork has not been publicly named by France\u2019s Alliance Police Nationale,<\/a> who said it as worth \u201ctens of millions\u201d of Euros. French newspaper Le Parisien reported that it is one of a series of Picasso\u2019s portraits of Marie-Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Walter, his mistress, produced in 1937 \u2013 with a value between \u20ac12m and \u20ac15m.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A portrait of Marie-Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Walter, similar to the one found by police (Mus\u00e9e National Picasso-Paris)<\/p>\n

A 37-year-old man who worked as a guard at a Paris firm that stores valuable art was arrested after the discovery.<\/p>\n

He admitted to taking the Picasso from the depot and told police<\/a> officers he was \u201cseeking to demonstrate security flaws within the company\u201d, Le Parisien said.<\/p>\n

The man has now been charged with theft and involvement in drug dealing after police found 17kg of cannabis, \u20ac200,000 (\u00a3174,000) worth of designer clothing and \u20ac7,000 in cash (\u00a36,000) during a search of several houses in the capital\u2019s eastern suburbs.<\/p>\n

The public prosecutor\u2019s office of Creteil said the search was \u201ccarried out as part of an investigation into drug trafficking. It said the painting<\/a> had been authenticated as an original Picasso.<\/p>\n

A further three people were arrested and appeared in court for an initial hearing on Friday, with more charges expected as the investigation continues. A trial is expected to begin in August this year.<\/p>\n

\"Picasso,<\/p>\n

Picasso, who died in 1973, pictured with one of his paintings at his home in Cannes (Getty)<\/p>\n

The portrait, the theft of which had not been publicly reported, was being held in private storage for a Singaporean woman who owned the piece, according to the police union.<\/p>\n

Marie-Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Walter, born in 1909, was a French model known as the artist\u2019s \u201cgolden muse\u201d, who first entered into a relationship with Picasso when she was 17 and he was 45, while married to Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova.<\/p>\n

Walter became pregnant with Picasso\u2019s child in 1934, after which Khokhlova left the painter and took their son to the south of France<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Picasso afterwards started a relationship with surrealist photographer Dora Maar, and maintained a relationship with both Maar and Walter in the years following.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French drug police made a stunning discovery during a routine narcotics raid in Paris, stumbling upon a stolen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[219108,307,304,305,306,219109,308,219112,93,61,60,219111,219107,1838,17388,219110],"class_list":["post-512994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-alliance-police-nationale","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-brigade-des-stupefiants","tag-design","tag-drug-dealer","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-le-parisien","tag-marie-therese-walter","tag-paris","tag-picasso","tag-stunning-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}