Pablo Picasso’s stolen portrait found 20 years later

A famous hunter of stolen paintings, Dutchman Arthur Brandt found Picasso's painting, which was stolen 20 years ago.Report informs citing the BBC.

A Dutchman known as the "Indiana Jones of the art world" has found a Picasso painting that was stolen 20 years ago.

Arthur Brand says the portrait was circulated in the Dutch criminal underworld for years after it was taken from a Saudi sheikh's yacht in 1999.

Buste de Femme (Dora Maar) was first painted in 1938, and is now thought to be worth €25m (£21m; $28m).

Dora Maar was Pablo Picasso's lover and muse for seven years. The painting hung in his home until his death in 1973.

The Picasso painting, he told news agency AFP, was circulated for years, "often being used as collateral, popping up in a drug deal here, four years later in an arms deal there".

"Everyone assumed it had been destroyed - that's what happens with 90% of all stolen art, because it can't be put on sale," he told Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, adding that after he recovered the painting, he hung it on his wall for the night "and thoroughly enjoyed it".