7. Le pigeon aux petits pois by Pablo Picasso may have ended up in a Paris trashcan after thieves who stole it got cold feet and panicked
During the second decade of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso was highly prolific indeed. The Spaniard produced a number of notable works, among them Le pigeon aux petit pois (The pigeon with peas). The 1911 work was on display at the Museum of Modern Art for the City of Paris – a city Picasso called home for some time – until it was stolen in a 2010 robbery. To date, none of the works taken that day have been recovered.
Picasso’s painting was stolen, along with five other works, one night in May 2010, when the popular museum was closed. The CCTV was working, and the video footage from the night show a masked man smashing a window, walking through the gallery’s corridors and taking five works from the walls. While it’s clear the thief acted alone, investigators also believe that he was stealing to order, with the mysterious buyer obviously keen to get their hands on a valuable Picasso.
Before long, police working the case believed they were hot on the trail of both the thief and the buyer. Apparently, the thief knew this too. When officers eventually arrested their prime suspect, he confirmed that, yes, he had stolen Le pigeon aux petits pois, he no longer had the painting in his possession. In fact, in a panic, he had thrown all the stolen paintings into a public trashcan shortly after taking them. When police searched the trashcan he directed them to, they found nothing. For the crime, he was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Most investigators don’t believe that the paintings were thrown away. Instead, they believe that they are still out there. However, since any attempt to sell them, even on the black market, is likely to attract a huge amount of attention, it’s probable that Picasso’s work will stay hidden away somewhere until someone makes a mistake and reveals the location or simply hands the stolen works back, as the French art world has politely requested they do.