Customs officials are tipped off about alleged attempt to take painting belonging to member of banking dynasty to Switzerland

When French customs officers boarded a yacht docked off the town of Calvi in northern Corsica, they knew exactly what they were looking for: a €25m Picasso belonging to a Spanish banking tycoon, banned from export from Spain, allegedly en route for Switzerland.

Island officials had been tipped off on Thursday that an attempt was being made to export the painting, Head of a Young Woman, declared a “historical heritage asset of exceptional importance” by a Spanish judge, and that it was in French territory.



The owner was named as Jaime Botín, whose family was involved in setting up the Santander bank. Botín, 79, was not on the boat, believed to be the three-masted, 370-tonne “superyacht”, the Adix, which customs officials said was owned by the company and flying a British flag.

Officials said that an export demand registered at Bastia, also on Corsica, was found on the vessel but was not in Botín’s name. The yacht’s captain could only produce a document in Spanish, found to be a legal judgment declaring the painting a “national treasure” and banning it from leaving Spain.

In May, a Spanish court upheld a 2013 ban preventing Botín from taking the work, kept on the Adix moored in the port of Valencia, to Britain, where it was reportedly to be sold by auctioneer Christie’s.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The seized painting at the customs offices in Calvi, in northern Corsica. Photograph: -/AFP

Spanish experts say the painting is “one of the few made by the painter in his so-called Gósol period where Picasso is clearly influenced by the fabric of Iberian art …that had a decisive influence, not only on cubism, but also on the subsequent evolution of the painting of the 20th century” and was of “exceptional importance”.



Shipping records show that the Adix, which was previously moored at the Real Club Nautico de Valencia in June, stopped off at Menorca, before arriving off the coast of Corsica on 10 July. The vessel’s current position is off the Anse de Chevanu in southern Corsica.



The Adix is reported to have recently undergone an eight-month refit, which included a redesign of its deck house and the addition of new portholes on each side. As part of an overhaul of its engineering, new generators and a main engine, bow thruster and rudder were installed.

Botín, who is said to be shy and discreet, acquired the Adix, a 14-crew, 64.85m-long schooner with a 1,720 sq m sail area and a top speed of 12 knots in 1989, buying it from the Australian beer tycoon Alan Bond, who named it XXXX, after his brewery.

The steel-hulled vessel, modelled on the 1903 schooner Atlantic, was built in the mid-80s in Mallorca and rigged in the UK. Botín renamed the boat Adix, his nickname for his wife Adela, and fitted it out with a 20,000-book library. In 2011, it was put up for sale for $31.5m.

Botín resigned in 2004 as vice president of Santander bank, founded by his grandfather, saying he wanted to “live life”.



The French authorities say they are waiting for a formal request from Spain for the painting to be returned.

