Police search after Picasso painting disappears on way to exhibition

After discovering the painting was missing, the foundation filed a complaint with Spain's national police

Picasso’s missing painting Still Life with Guitar, 1919 (Private collection)

A valuable 1919 Pablo Picasso painting has mysteriously vanished while in transit to a temporary exhibition in the southern Spanish city of Granada, sparking a police investigation.

The CajaGranada Foundation, which is organising the display, confirmed the loss in a statement issued late on Thursday. The missing artwork, a small framed gouache titled 'Still life with guitar', was part of a larger consignment of pieces transported from Madrid to the Andalusian city. It was destined for the exhibition 'Still life: The eternity of the inert'.

The foundation confirmed on Friday that the painting, owned by a private collector and measuring 13 x 10 centimetres (5 x 4 inches), was insured for an appraised value of 600,000 euros ($700,000).

The shipment was delivered to the CajaGranada cultural centre on the morning of October 3, a Friday.

Granada's red-walled Alhambra palace complex (Getty/iStock)

The loss was not discovered until the following Monday, when the exhibit's curator and the foundation's head of exhibitions began unpacking the crates.

"As not all packages were properly numbered, it was not possible to carry out a thorough check without unpacking them," the foundation added.

The CajaGranada Foundation said it had reviewed the security footage from that weekend and confirmed "no incident occurred" during that time.

After discovering the painting was missing, the foundation filed a complaint with Spain's national police.

The organisation said it has made all its resources available to investigators and expressed confidence in the authorities' ability to resolve the case.