Picasso paintings stolen from his granddaughter’s house

PARIS – At least two Picasso paintings worth nearly $66 million were stolen from the house of the artist’s granddaughter in Paris, police said Wednesday.\nThe paintings, “Maya and the Doll” and “Portrait of Jacqueline,” disappeared overnight Monday to Tuesday from the chic 7th arrondissement, or district, a Paris police official said.\nThe official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said that they were worth nearly $66 million and that there were signs of breaking and entering in the house.\nThe Art Loss Register, which maintains the world’s largest database on stolen, missing and looted art, lists 444 missing Picasso pieces, including paintings, lithographs, drawings and ceramics.\nThe number of missing Picassos is so high simply because Picasso was so prolific, said Antonia Kimbell, a staff member with the register. She said the Paris theft was “definitely quite significant.”\nAlthough police only mentioned the two paintings, the director of the Picasso Museum, Anne Baldassari, said several paintings and drawings were stolen from the home of Diana Widmaier-Picasso, an art historian and author of a book called “Art Can Only Be Erotic.”\n“It was a very large theft,” she said, without giving details.\n“Maya and the Doll” is a colorful portrait of Widmaier-Picasso’s mother as a young blond girl in pigtails, eyes askew in a Cubist perspective. Maya is the daughter of Picasso and Marie-Therese Walter, his companion from 1927 to 1944.\n“Portrait of Jacqueline” depicts Picasso’s last wife.\nAmong recent missing Picassos is an abstract watercolor stolen in Mexico, Kimbell said.\nMajor stolen pieces usually sell on the black market for a pittance, if at all, because potential buyers are afraid to touch them.