Missing artworks by Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian have been recovered by Greek police almost a decade after they were stolen in a daring museum heist.
Both were taken, along with a third artwork, during an elaborate 2012 heist at the Athens National Gallery.
The artworks were stripped from their frames in the early morning raid which only took minutes to carry out.
Reuters news agency, citing an anonymous police official, reported that a Greek man has been arrested after the art was found hidden at a gorge on the outskirts of the city.
Monday’s announcement came just months after it was reported that Greek police still believed the artwork was in the country.
Picasso painting, a portrait of a woman in his signature cubist style, was gifted to the National Gallery by the artist himself back in 1949. Painted a decade earlier, he said the gift was in recognition to the country’s resistance to Nazi Germany.
The theft took place on the final day of an exhibition entitled “Unknown Treasures,” which had also featured prints and etchings by artists including Albrecht Duerer and Rembrandt van Rijn.
