Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

The theft of a large number of artworks from the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana, Cuba, has been discovered after several well-known paintings that belong to that National Arts Museum's collection appeared in an art sale in Miami. Apparently, because they had been kept in the Museum's storage for a long period, they had not been detected as missing from the museum's inventory. Gallery Owner and Art Dealer, Ramón Cernuda, first alerted authorities about the theft after having performed a documental inquiry into his new acquisition titled Carnaval Infantil (Children Carnival), a painting by Cuban vanguard artist Eduardo Abela. During the research on this work, the gallery owner found a book with a list of all the works from the Cuban museum's collection, including Abela's Carnaval Infantil. Now it is known that, after contacting the Cuban museum, it was possible to determine that a total of 95 more works were missing from the collection, presumably stolen to be traded in the international market. The FBI received the work from Cernuda after he made the discovery of the theft. An investigation is underway to find the source of the money used to acquire the work and thus to find those responsible for the theft. In the meantime, the work bought by Cernuda has been scheduled to return to the collection of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana.