[MSN] French investigators recovered two Picasso paintings and a drawing that were stolen from the home of the artist's granddaughter in an overnight heist in February, a police official said Tuesday.

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French police recover stolen Picasso works 
PARIS (AP) - French investigators recovered two Picasso paintings and a
drawing that were stolen from the home of the artist's granddaughter in an
overnight heist in February, a police official said Tuesday.
Police took three people into custody. Two suspects were carrying the
rolled-up canvases when police closed in Tuesday as they were expected to
try to sell the masterpieces, the official said.
The two paintings - one of Pablo Picasso's daughter Maya, the other of his
second wife Jacqueline - are worth nearly $66 million. Burglars had stolen
them and the drawing from the luxurious Left Bank apartment of Diana
Widmaier-Picasso, Maya Picasso's daughter.

MORE: Picasso paintings stolen from his granddaughter's house:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-28-picasso-stolen_x.htm

Investigators were tipped off about a suspect by an art dealer, said a
French police official who asked not to be identified by name, citing his
office's policy.
Based on the tip, two different police bureaus - one that specializes in
armed thefts and another in the trafficking of cultural goods - launched a
constant surveillance of the main suspect.
After more than a month, investigators were convinced the suspect was
preparing to try to sell the works. They took him and an accomplice into
custody as they were transporting the rolled-up Picassos, the police
official said. A third person was also taken into custody.
Police released no further details.
Burglars slipped into Widmaier-Picasso's apartment on Feb. 26 or 27. At the
time, police said they believed the thieves cut the edges of one painting,
Maya and the Doll, to take it out of its frame. It was not immediately clear
if the recovered works had suffered any damage.
Maya and the Doll, which shows Widmaier-Picasso's mother as a young girl in
pigtails, is painted in a skewed Cubist perspective. Another version of the
painting hangs in the Picasso Museum in Paris.
The other recovered painting, Portrait of Jacqueline, depicts Picasso's
second wife, Jacqueline Roque.
France's art world was still reeling from another major theft just this
weekend. As a handful of visitors milled about the Museum of Fine Arts in
Nice on the French Riviera on Sunday, five men dashed in and made off with
four paintings worth about $1.4 million.
The stolen paintings were Monet's Cliffs near Dieppe, fellow Impressionist
Alfred Sisley's Lane of Poplars near Moret, and Flemish master Jan Brueghel
the Elder's Allegory of Earth and Allegory of Water, said the museum's
deputy curator Patricia Grimaud.
The FBI estimates the market for stolen art at $6 billion annually. The Art
Loss Register, which maintains the world's largest database on the issue,
has tallied up 170,000 pieces of stolen, missing and looted art and
valuables.

http://www.usatoday.com/