Spanish police recover stolen Francis Bacon painting

Spanish National Police on Thursday announced that they had recovered a stolen €5 million ($5.4 million) painting by the late British artist Francis Bacon.

The small canvas, an 1989 oil entitled "Study for a Portrait of Jose Capelo," had been stolen from banker Capelo's Madrid apartment in 2015 along with four other Bacon works and a safe containing rare coins and jewels.

Police say the perpetrators were able to disarm the apartment's alarm system and make off with the loot without leaving a trace.

The paintings alone were estimated at a value of more than €25 million, leading investigators at the time to call the theft one of the biggest contemporary art heists ever committed in Spain.

Police looking for Spaniards with ties to Eastern European crime networks

Authorities say the study was recovered from a Madrid property after they received a tip from two individuals arrested in February in connection with handling stolen goods.

So far, police have arrested 16 individuals in connection with the crime; among them, the person believed to have contracted the theft and those who carried it out.

Three of the paintings were recovered in 2017, the safe and the last remaining painting have yet to be located.

"Investigations are continuing to locate the remaining work and arrest those in possession of it, with the focus on Spanish nationals with links to organized groups from Eastern Europe," according to a Spanish police statement issued on Thursday.

Bacon's reputation as a tormented genius has helped drive his market value

Bacon, who was born in Dublin but lived and worked primarily in London, is considered one of the twentieth century's greatest painters.

His reputation as a volatile, hard-drinking and tormented genius has contributed to his fame, spawning numerous academic studies and popular books — plus a big-screen biopic.

Bacon's critically acclaimed work is featured in many of the world's top private and institutional collections and his market value has continued to skyrocket over the years.  In 2013, his triptych, "Three Studies of Lucien Freud," sold for a record $142.4 at Christie's auction house in New York.

A keen student of Old Master paintings, foremost among them the legendary Spanish painter Diego Velazquez, Bacon often traveled to Madrid to study such works at the Prado Museum. He died in the Spanish capital on one such trip in 1992, aged 82.

js/rc (AFP, dpa, Reuters)