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Television footage from a press conference announcing the recovery of the 1939 Woman’s Head painting shows the painting slowly slipping off the podium and falling to the floor in the ministry’s conference room.
Soon, a man leaped towards the image, wearing a shirt and a protective mask but without gloves, picked it up and put it back in place.
The Greek division of Greek furniture giant Ikea posted an image with #picasso and #oops (oi) image tags on its Facebook account for the image shelves sold in Ikea stores.
Another DIY network, Plaisio, sent a more direct message. He posted a photograph of the same painting, placed on a painting tripod, and a grotto mark next to it in Greek, meaning “never fall.”
Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni was criticized for the incident on Thursday, but said both paintings were “apparently in good condition.”
Picasso’s “Head of a Woman”, donated to Greece in 1949, was stolen in January 2012 along with the “Mill” by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian during a robbery at the National Gallery of Athens.
The report, released after the investigation, says that the museum’s security system has not been updated for more than a decade. The then police minister said “there was no protection.”
Police denounced the theft of paintings by arresting a 49-year-old builder, who confessed to committing the crime.
According to L. Mendoni, the painting painted in oil on canvas in 1939 would have been “impossible to sell” because on the other side is P. Picasso’s personal inscription “For the Greek people, a gift from Picasso.”
The Spanish master presented this cubist-style painting to the Greek state in honor of the country’s resistance to Nazi Germany during the painful occupation of 1941-1944.
The thieves of the paintings originally said they were hiding them in their home, but recently hid them in a gorge in the rural district of Keratea, about 45 km southeast of Athens.
