Portuguese 
Spanish 
A family forgot an artwork inherited for generations at their doorstep during travel preparations, and the outcome of the case only arrived days later, coming from a city more than 500 kilometers away
There are stories that seem like movie scripts, but they actually happened on a regular Saturday morning in the historic center of Seville. On the last weekend of June 2026, an original painting by the Valencian artist Joaquín Sorolla — a small piece depicting two boats on a beach — disappeared from the sidewalk of a residence on Rafael González Abreu Street, and the case quickly turned into a police investigation that would only be solved days later, following a phone call from Murcia.
According to reports from Spanish outlets like Infobae, El Español, and La Cámara del Arte, it all started in a trivial way: a family was preparing to travel for their summer vacation and was loading luggage into the car parked in front of their house. Amidst the rush, the residents leaned the painting — which had belonged to the family for many years — against the building’s facade on the sidewalk and simply forgot to take it along with the rest of the baggage.
The rush of the luggage, the carelessness, and the suspicion of theft
When they realized the absence of the artwork, the owners were already on their way to the coast. They returned to Seville hoping to find it exactly where they had left it, but the sidewalk was empty. From there, the case was recorded as a possible criminal disappearance with the Spanish National Police.
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In this regard, the first images from security cameras in the area reinforced the mysterious atmosphere: the recordings showed that more than one person had approached the painting before it was definitively taken away, fueling the hypothesis that some distracted tourist — or even a premeditated scheme — might be behind the disappearance. The family then spread posters around the city in Spanish and English, offering a reward to anyone who found the piece and publicly describing it as a work “of great sentimental value,” valued by other outlets at something between 30,000 and 60,000 euros.
Meanwhile, the case’s repercussion quickly grew throughout the city. After all, it’s not every day that an original painting by one of the greatest names in Spanish art simply disappears from a residential sidewalk. On the other hand, the authorities soon realized that the elements of the case did not exactly fit the definition of theft: since the artwork was unattended in a public area and there was no use of force or intimidation against anyone, the investigators began to legally treat the episode as a case of misappropriation of lost property — and not as qualified theft or robbery per se.
The call that came from Murcia and solved the mystery
The answer to the riddle, however, came from an unlikely place: the village of Puebla de Soto, in the region of Murcia, more than 500 kilometers from Seville. According to information from Europa Press and the broadcaster Radio Seville, Andrés, a local resident who had spent the weekend in the Andalusian capital with his family, contacted the National Police to report that he had the artwork in his possession.
According to Andrés’ account to Radio Seville, he spotted the painting leaning on the ground on Canalejas Street, near the hotel where he was staying, and since no one seemed to be taking care of the piece, he assumed it was a discarded object. “I took it because I liked the frame,” he confessed to the authorities, explaining that he took the painting to his hotel room with the intention of later transporting it home.
It was only back in Murcia that Andrés realized the true significance of what he had found. Curious about the artwork hanging in his room, he used an artificial intelligence app on his phone to try to identify the painting’s author — and the result surprised him by confirming it was a genuine piece by Joaquín Sorolla. “I used the AI on my phone to identify the painting and thought: ‘Wow, this painting is really good!'”, he recalled, still impressed by the discovery.
It was precisely by following local news that Andrés learned the family had reported the disappearance to the police, which led him to contact the authorities on his own. “So, I called the police to say that the painting was with me,” he reported. Upon confirmation, National Police agents traveled to Murcia to personally examine the piece and officially certify that it was indeed the missing Sorolla from Seville.
Even so, it is worth noting that the family preferred to keep the exact market value of the artwork confidential, although other outlets have estimated the piece to be between 30,000 and 60,000 euros based on preliminary evaluations. What is officially known is that the painting — small in size and signed by the master of Spanish light — will soon return to the hands of its rightful owners. As for Andrés, the next time he needs to load the car for a trip, it’s quite likely he’ll check the sidewalk much more carefully before leaving.
