83-year-old billionaire Jaime Botín, of the Spanish banking family that runs Santander Group, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined €52.4 million (£44.1 million) for “smuggling cultural property”.
Botín had called on Christie's London in 2012 to sell Head of a Young Woman, a painting by Pablo Picasso then estimated at €26.2 million (£22.1 million). The Spanish government, however, refused to export the work because it was declared a national treasure.
In 2015, Botín asked his driver to drive the painting from Madrid to Valencia, where his yacht Adix was about to set sail for Corsica. Authorities seized the work aboard the yacht during a search in July of the same year. The captain of the yacht is said to have 'omitted' the painting in the list of works on board. Botín had then planned to take it aboard a private jet from Corsica to Geneva to sell it.
During the trial held in November 2019, the prosecution requested the seizure of the painting and Adix, and demanded a fine of €100 million (£84.3 mil) and a sentence of four years in prison.
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According to the El Confidencial website, Botín's defence, overseen by Javier Gómez Bermúdez (ex-judge of the National Court), affirmed that the painting was hardly ever in Spain except on a few occasions, such as the marriage of Botín's daughter in 2003, when the work was framed. He added that Botín intended to bring Head of a Young Woman to Geneva to keep it, not to auction it off.
The judgment rendered last Thursday, 16 January in Madrid sentenced Jaime Botín to 18 months in prison, along with a fine of €52.4 million (£44.2 mil), payment of court costs, and the seizure of the work for the benefit of the state. "Although fully aware of the administrative ban, the defendant transferred the painting to [his yacht], moored in Valencia, in order to export [the painting] from Spain", said judge Raquel González Bayón.
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Spanish heritage laws stipulate that any work of art over 100 years old, and which is considered culturally important, can be declared a National Treasure and requires any owner to obtain a permit before taking the work out of the country.
The portrait was painted by Picasso in the early 1900s, when he was only 24 years old, during his Gosol period. Botín acquired the work in 1977 in London. The work has been kept in the collection of the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid for the last four years and will remain there until the authorities decide on its new home.
