Spanish police recover Francis Bacon painting worth €5m

This article was first published by the Guardian.

Police in Madrid have recovered a portrait by Francis Bacon, valued at €5m (£4.3m), which was one of five works by the famously thirsty and hell-raising artist that were stolen from the home of the painting’s subject almost a decade ago.

The pictures, whose total value has been put at €25m, disappeared in 2015 after a break-in at the Madrid home of José Capelo, a Spanish banker and close friend of Bacon who sat for the painter.

Three of the paintings were found in 2017, and the Policía Nacional announced on Thursday that a fourth – Bacon’s 1989 Study for Portrait of José Capelo – had been recovered.