Picasso and Mondrian works stolen in raid on Greek gallery

Police said the burglars who entered through a balcony door also took a pen and ink drawing of a religious scene by Italian 16th century painter Guglielmo Caccia.

A fourth work by Mondrian was removed from the National Art Gallery in one of the best-guarded areas of central Athens but was abandoned as the thieves fled.

Museum officials were unable to estimate how much the stolen works were worth.

Police said the crime took about seven minutes. The thieves had set off alarms on several occasions since Sunday without entering the building, prompting guards to disable at least one. The burglars still triggered a sensor in the exhibition area, but a guard only got there in time to see a man running off.

The stolen work by Pablo Picasso was given by the Spanish painter to Greece in 1949 “in homage to the Greek people” for their resistance to Nazi occupiers during the Second World War.