It has all the ingredients of a classic crime thriller: high-value art, a heist at the Louvre, and one of the most influential artists in history.
For more than a century, Pablo Picasso’s role in “figure figurines” has been surrounded by intrigue.
Now a new book claims that Picasso not only ordered the theft of two Iberian sculptures from the Louvre, but “almost certainly participated in it.”
Pulitzer-nominated art history professor and art crime expert Dr. Noah Charney argues that the sculptures were on display in storage at the time, not in the Louvre, so they “should have been sought proactively.”
B.C., Dr Charney told The Telegraph He said that every statue made in the 3rd century weighed more than 15 lbs: “It is unlikely that a single person could steal both heads single-handedly, so I would argue that both Picasso and Apollinaire were complicit.”
A 2021 exhibition in Spain questioned whether Picasso inspired his friend, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, to steal two ancient Iberian statues from the museum in 1907. Picasso later hid them in his wardrobe.
He stated that the statues had no real financial value at the time they were stolen: “Their interest was archaeological and concerned the history of the pre-Roman inhabitants of the area now known as Spain and Portugal, the Iberians, a tribe that lived only in Rome, which has recently begun to receive academic attention. Picasso, they also He felt an instant connection with them, seeing a common Iberian heritage.”
He said that Picasso first saw them in 1904, when they were exhibited in a new room of Iberian art at the Louvre: “As a proud Spaniard, Picasso was very impressed by the ancient sculptures that had the air of simplified abstraction of Cycladic art. The figurines were thousands of years old and original to Picasso’s homeland.” “It was his most original art. The sculptures were perhaps not artistic masterpieces. While that wasn’t perhaps the most obvious option for something to be stolen, they were stolen anyway.”
They would prove central to the evolution of modern art and inspire Picasso’s interpretation of them in his masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon), which began the same year his thefts began.
Dr Charney is the internationally bestselling author of more than 20 books, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art.
Their latest research is featured in his new book, The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: The Complete Story of the World’s Most Famous Works of Art, published in February.
In a chapter on Picasso and Iberian sculptures, he downplays the suspicion that Joseph-Honoré Géry Pieret, a Belgian swindler and Apollinaire’s private secretary, was involved in the theft. Pieret later boasts of stealing objects from the Louvre when they were simply placed. on tables without locks or glass display cases.
He writes that the Louvre’s Iberian room is secluded and relatively difficult to find: “Although it would be an exaggeration to think that Pieret randomly chose that room to steal from, it is beyond belief that he stole the sculptures that Picasso admired… and then offered them to the Spaniards.” …
“We know that Picasso hid them among his clothes because his then-lover, Fernande Olivier, noted in her memoirs that of all the works of art in Picasso’s collection, he always found them strange, most of which were prominently displayed around him. apartment and studio, with only these two statue heads remaining at the bottom of his wardrobe.
He added that in 1911, Picasso and Apollinaire were brought in for questioning by the Paris police on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa due to Apollinaire’s connection to Pieret as a known thief: “They were actually innocent in the theft of the Mona Lisa. , but they were still terrified; So much so that Picasso denied under oath that he had ever seen Apollinaire. [They] “They were terrified of the police, not because they stole the Mona Lisa, but because they stole something else.”
Apollinaire returned the two statue heads anonymously to the Paris newspaper for which he worked as an art critic. The police were largely preoccupied with recovering the Mona Lisa, and so Picasso and Apollinaire got away with the theft in Iberia.
Dr Charney expressed surprise that this case had not received more attention: “This is a little known fact, but it is a fact nonetheless. I believe I am the first person to describe the ‘Affaire des figurines’ in all its depth.