The 238ft Lürssen Coral Island was moored in France, in Antibes’ Port Vauban undergoing repairs in March 1999, when a portrait by Picasso of his lover, Dora Maar, disappeared from one of the suites. A professional art handler had been hired to remove the owner's art collection – which included not just Buste de Femme, as the work was known, but another Picasso and a Matisse – for safekeeping. From their secure fixings in the salon, they were moved, carefully wrapped and crated, to a cabin with a lock but no alarm. When the art handler returned to collect them five days later, Buste de Femme had vanished.
