Art Theft Central on Picasso

In June 2005, the Picasso Museum made headlines after purchasing "Odalisque," a 1951 pencil sketch on paper depicting Picasso's mistress reclining nude for $575,000 (over three times its estimated value). This sketch in addition to 19 others were auctioned off by the Spanish artist's former mistress, Genevieve Laporte. In total the sketches, many of which bared the intimate inscription "For Genevieve," fetched $1.87 million.

Recently, the Picasso Museum made headlines again after a red sketchbook containing 33 drawings and worth an estimated $11.2 million was stolen from a locked display case in one of its second-floor galleries. Its astonishing that given the desirability of works of art by Picasso and the tremendous sums of money the Picasso Museum has spent on sketches in the past that they would not have better security measures implemented protecting such a significant part of their collection. While sketches are not the most expensive works of art in collections (their values pail in comparison to paintings, such as Dora Maar au Chat), they do capture the artist's stylistic progress and any artistic nuances that may not be so apparent on canvas. Accordingly, these missing Picasso sketches are crucial to the curating of the galleries in the museum that bears his name.

After the sketchbook's theft, French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said, "It's difficult to sell, a notebook of pencil sketches made in the 1920s... Even the Picasso family said it has a scientific value... It seems bizarre, to say the least." Bizarre maybe, but I do not think the sketchbook would be as difficult to sell as many have been led to believe. Certainly, as a collection of sketches, the album might be able to fetch a few million, or only a fraction of its estimated value, on the black market. However, why has no one voiced any concern over the sketchbook's being dismantled and sold off piecemeal to a number of buyers? What if in order to separate and distinguish them from the contents of the stolen sketchbook the sketches are slightly altered by the thieves? Although this second scenario may be less plausible, there must still be some concern voiced for the safety of the sketchbook.