Catalan police have recovered 200-year-old drawings by Spanish artist Salvador Dalí.
The police force announced this during a press conference on Friday. The drawings were stolen in January last year in a burglary in Barcelona.
The police say they have arrested three brothers aged 50, 53 and 55. In addition to Dalí’s two charcoal drawings, other works of art, luxury watches and valuable coins were also found. The police tracked down the burglars when they tried to resell the drawings. Someone from the art world who got wind of this alerted the police.
The burglars were already arrested in May 2022, but the paintings were, according to the newspaper El País not found in their homes. Through messages in the suspects’ phones, the police discovered the paintings in a storage room in August.
Authentic
Dalí made the two recovered drawings in 1922 as illustrations for a book. The works have a value of around 300,000 euros. They have been checked for authenticity by experts from the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation and have since been returned to their owners in Barcelona.
Operating in affluent areas of Barcelona, the three arrested brothers chose their target after days of surveillance. Once inside, they only took valuable works of art, coin collections and other antiques with them.