An unusual piece of art that was hanging in the back bedroom of a deserted apartment in Milwaukee has been found to be a Picasso etching that was lost from a local gallery more than eight years ago.
The piece of art, an etching by Picasso from 1949 called Torero, which is Spanish for ‘bullfighter’, was found by Timothy Dertz, a landlord in Milwaukee, when a tenant moved out. It was covered with dust and had been placed in an odd corner behind a door in the apartment, and at first glance it looked no different from another piece of artwork that had been forgotten.
On closer examination, everything changed.
Dertz had an antique dealer look at the print, and both of them saw a familiar signature in green crayon which read “Picasso”. It was later found that the artwork was thought to be an original etching of Torero, one of only 30 prints, and had been missing since 2018.
A Picasso vanishes in broad daylight
DeLind Fine Art Appraisals in Milwaukee lost the artwork in February 2018, and its value at that time was estimated to be between $35,000 and $50,000.
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As the gallery officials have stated, the theft was extremely simple: a person is said to have gone into the gallery during the day, taken the Picasso off the wall and then left without anyone noticing at once.
Bill DeLind, who was a co-owner of the gallery, had allegedly seen the painting earlier that same day, and his business partner, Michael Goforth, later noticed that the Picasso was missing.
Years were spent in an attempt to recover the artwork due to its disappearance.
At first the gallery offered a reward of $5,000, raised it to $7,500 next, and finally increased it to $10,000. DeLind and Goforth kept in touch with the police and the local press for many years in the hope that some new information would appear.
For the gallery owners, the loss of the painting was not merely a financial one. According to reports, Goforth, who had died earlier in 2026, had always been deeply determined to locate the Picasso.
An unexpected discovery behind a bedroom door
This August the mystery took an unexpected turn.
Dertz noticed the strange print when his tenant had left the apartment; the artwork had been hanging silently in a back bedroom and had thus gathered dust over time.
When describing the location, Dertz told the local media that it was in a back bedroom behind a door and that this was rather unusual for something which could possibly be a valuable work of art.
Upon finding out about the possible link to the 2018 theft, Dertz allegedly became worried about his unintentional involvement and finally gave the print to the Milwaukee Police Department on August 5, 2026.
The police expressed their赞赏 for him in having realised that the artwork might be significant and then handing it over to the authorities.
The officers then got in touch with DeLind, who looked at the etching that had been recovered and verified that it was the one missing Picasso.
The discovery was a deeply emotional moment for the gallery owner.
Having not known what had become of the artwork for more than eight years, DeLind stated that he had never anticipated seeing it once again. The fact that it reappeared in apparently good condition made the recovery all the more remarkable.
A mystery that is not completely over
Although the Picasso has been recovered, there are still questions concerning the way in which the artwork was transported from the Milwaukee gallery to the apartment where it was finally found.
The police state that the case is still under investigation.
The long gap between the theft and the recovery could also make it more difficult to take legal action. It has been reported that Wisconsin’s statute of limitations for most cases of theft and property offences is usually six years, although the investigators might still attempt to find out how the artwork passed from one person to another and ended up in the apartment.
Stolen artworks frequently end up in private collections, in storage areas or in people’s homes and can go unnoticed for years. It has long been noted by experts in the field of art crime that valuable pieces may reappear when someone tries to sell them or when a new owner starts to look into where they came from.
In this instance, the Picasso was not found at an auction house or as a result of a major international investigation; rather, it was said to be hanging unnoticed behind a door in a normal apartment.
Who currently owns Picasso?
Even though DeLind Fine Art Appraisals were happy about the recovery, the gallery is not certainly the legal owner of the artwork.
It is said that the insurance company paid the gallery after the 2018 theft, which implies that the insurer is now the legitimate owner of the item that was recovered.
Yet DeLind hopes that the artwork might eventually go back to the gallery at least on a temporary basis, so that the public will once again be able to see Torero in the place where it had previously been displayed.
The fact that an artwork disappeared completely in broad daylight and has been missing for over eight years makes its return an extraordinary ending to one of Milwaukee’s most unusual art mysteries.
It all started when a landlord asked himself why an old and dusty picture had been left hanging behind a bedroom door.
