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Cruise ship thief walks off with Picasso

Organisers of a cruise didn't search passengers before they disembarked despite knowing one of them had stolen a Picasso.

The etching disappeared from a wall display on the Fantasy ship during a four-day art auction cruise to the Bahamas.

Officials decided to write off the loss instead of searching everyone. It was valued at around £9,000.

The 12 inch square etching entitled Petite Infante Accroupie Et Courtisan dates from 1968, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

It was lifted out of its frame a day before the ship docked at Port Canaveral in Florida.

Carnival cruise company spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said: "Between checked luggage and hand-carried luggage, you are talking about thousands of bags.

"A person could have taped it to his body. To try to search all those bags and do body searches as well, it wasn't realistic."

Brevard County Sheriff's officer Todd Howard said: "This is a new one to us. We don't normally deal with art, especially this type of art. We're used to TVs and VCRs."

It was one of a series of 347 etchings that Picasso created in a seven-month period in 1968, when he was in his mid-80s.

It was owned by Park West Galleries a company that organises art auctions on cruises.

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Originally posted by joe at travelpage:
Who would have thought...that a Carnival ship would have a real Picasso onboard?

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The whole time I was on the Pride I was thinking, "It's lovely but once you've SEEN the Sistine Chapel, once you've BEEN to the British Museum, or the Louvre then everything else looks a little fake. Thomas kept saying "I know what you're thinking. Stop being such a CULTURAL SNOB!!!"

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Originally posted by Katie O'Girl:
NOW, MALCOLM !!!!
What a remark!!

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Yes, sorry I know it was a cheap stereotype of a joke, but I just could not resist it.

I would not be able to tell an original Picasso either!

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Originally posted by nathan:
Not all Carnival passengers are the ignorant, uneducated slobs that you think us to be.

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I do need to tell you though that on my cruise on the Pride a woman doctor shared my table at dinner. I met an NFL player, (I actually found him on the internet when I got back.)and a barrister (attorney/judge) in the hot tub. I met two financial advisors with big American corporations, a bank president, a stock broker and a Professor of English Literature who never said two words but his wife boasted about him a lot. He just sat there with his book and smiled at me. I have to admit I WAS surprised after all I'd heard about the Carnival lines. I was told that Carnival was "cleaning up it's act" and that the only time you have to really worry about idiots being on board is during the college spring break and on the three day cruises because that's all that the college kids can afford and that the ships are loaded with them then. After cruising on that ship I'm wondering if Carnival caters to "Closet Intellectuals" who are just off for a good time incognito!!! You just never know. LOL! I'm sure there are a few.
(Please, no one slag me for saying the above. Just repeating what I was told by long time Carnival Cruisers.)

Yes, I must agree, Morris Minors are rather attractive. I don't mind Jaguars either, though! Actually, I rather like British cars, new ones and old ones. It's a shame we don't see to many over here (except the ubiquitous Jaguar S-Types and XJs). Perhaps the new Mini from BMw will bring us a few more cars. And if I could just convince Rover to bring over that adorable new MG TF and the Rover 75 also... Oh well, this isn't a car board so I'll shut up already...

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Originally posted by Katie O'Girl:
Good Grief! It must be a "Guy thing". I don't know a single woman that thinks Morris Minors are pretty but every guy I know thinks they're nice.

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Hang on a minute! The Morris is not my favourite car, but I must admit they are cute. It was in fact Mr.M that owned a Morris Traveller (not a Minor) not me. The Traveller had an exteded body with two rear doors - an early hatch back?. It also had a timber frame like the American 'Woody'!

As for it being a guy thing, my wife choose and purchased the car, long before she met me! I can confirm that the 'Morris Minor Owners Club' has many womem members.

It was quite hard work to driving a Traveller or Minor, because they had a giant steering wheel, like a bus and big heavy pedals. The gear box (stick-shift) was hard work too! It felt like dragging a stick through a box of pebbles. The seats became soft over the years, so you could hardly see above the dash-board, and had to look through the steering wheel.

Power-steering and air-con were not options. They came with a starting handle, but if you got it wrong it would break your arm!

Just like a ship, you had to sand down the wood and yacht varnish it from time to time!

Above: Morris Traveller

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Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:

It was in fact Mr.M that owned a Morris Traveller (not a Minor) not me...my wife choose and purchased the car, long before she met me...

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You mean Mrs. M. (unless there is a person called Mr. M I don't know about, and your wife chose the car for him).

As for Morris Minors, I didn't say that they were wonderful either, I just said I must admit that they're rather attractive (in this case read "cute")... I forgot to mention, I do not like Citroens, old ones or new ones (though some of the new ones are a good value for your franc, i.e. Xsara) and most other French cars... I do like French food, and the language, and some other French things, but not, for the most part, their cars. Note that I do not mean to offend any people here who may have a taste for French cars.

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Originally posted by Cambodge:
I understand Morris got a new job after he was laid off when the mines closed. I know he went to Oxford, and then went to India to consult for the Hindustan Motor Works. His design is a favorite Indian taxi.

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I don't know that much about Mr. Morris, but he was a builder of motor cycles before turning to cars. At any rate, he did not design the Minor. It was designed by the genius auto designer Alec Issigonis, who also later designed the Mini. By that time, Morris and its sporting subsidiary MG (Morris Garages) had amalgamated with Austin to form British Motor Company (BMC). It was this way that Mr. Issigonis got to design cars for Austin, who were mainly behind the development of the Mini as the Austin Seven (later the Austin Mini). It was simultaneously released as the Morris Mini Minor, and later became a Rover for a time (after British Leyland, the amalgamation of BMC and Leyland, became Austin Rover and then dropped the Austin bit) and then branched out as its own marque which marketed the original Mini until the end of production in 2001 when the name was handed over by MG Rover to their former parent company, BMW for the new Mini. Of course the Minor had been discontinued for thirty years by then (since 1971), and the Morris marque itself in 1984. The Minor was in production from 1948 through 1971, and the Austin Seven/Morris Mini Minor/Austin Mini/Rover Mini/Mini from 1959 to 2001. The car Malcom refers to as the Traveller, by the way, was actually marketed as the Morris Minor Traveller (there were Traveller variants for several models, not just the Minor). I hope you don't mind my useless ramblings.