Although the case of her two stolen works National Gallery (EPMAS) closed to justice in connection with a trial that took place about twenty days ago, an important question remains open.

And this applies primarily to what is dear to the Greeks. “Woman’s Head” Pablo Picasso. The work, a portrait of Dora Maar, photographer and companion of Picasso, now exhibited among other important works of Western European art in the gallery, of course, has been preserved and restored. However, his ten years of suffering from – in his words – “artistic” thief caused irreparable damage to the portrait.

“Two works stolen from the National Gallery have undergone structural changes invisible to the eye of the beholder. Specifically for the “Female Head” by Pablo Picasso, it was found that the coherence of the layers, i.e. the contact of the color layers with the carrier (fabric) is severely disturbed, which makes the work fragile and unstable, and also presented during the interrogation of me at an open hearing of the criminal court on January 20, 2023″, says Ms. Efi Agafonikou “K”.director of collections at the National Gallery.

Specifically, to our question about the state of the work, the restorer of portable paintings EPMAS Kristina Karadima explained: “For each painting in the EPMAS collections, a record is kept of its physical state of preservation, as well as interventional, rescue and preventive maintenance measures. These documents are updated when changes are made.

Apparently, also in the case of a specific project, there was a complete documentation file, and on the basis of this, the project was considered after its restoration,” explains Ms. Karadima. So, what changes were found and what are the reasons that caused them?

It turned out that the contact of the color layers with the canvas of the work was severely disturbed.

“Initially, the clumsy and brutal manipulation of the theft caused structural changes in the stratigraphy that were later established by inappropriate storage conditions,” she explains, referring to the project’s years of suffering.

Recall that, as stated in court, the stolen was found in a stream in Porto Rafti. One of the police officers involved in the investigation testified that two paintings by Picasso and Mondrian were found covered in nylon packaging and wrapped in duct tape. They were in large polyester briefcases similar to those used by architects.

“For the re-exposition of the work, a restoration protocol was followed, based on the principles of reversibility and minimal intervention,” notes on conservative “K”. For its part, the Gallery took care “for the purpose of preventive maintenance of the painted surface” and installed a special glass on the front side to ensure the best protection of the work from further wear and tear.

honorary offer

It is worth emphasizing that the “Female Head” was Picasso’s honorary gift to the Greek people for their courageous resistance during the Nazi occupation, part of an important donation from French artists, collected thanks to the efforts of the philhellene Roger Milieu and his wife Tatiana Gritsis. – Millieux, and was exhibited in 1949 at the French Institute in Athens. Approximately three decades later, the gift was presented for the second time, after which the work remained in the warehouses of the Gallery for a long time. It reappeared in 2007 for a month, when the National Gallery, participating in the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the French Institute, re-donated. His next and last public appearance took place in 2011.

Early on the morning of January 9, 2012, Giorgos Sarmantzopoulos managed to get inside the museum through an unsecured balcony door, trick the guard into causing a false alarm and escape with his loot. The offender was arrested in June 2021 and confessed to his deed. He was given six years probation. The court ruled as a limiting condition to keep him under electronic surveillance, which had been imposed since last summer.