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In January, the art world looked on as Spanish collector and banker Jaime Botín was sentenced to 18 months in jail for smuggling Pablo Picasso’s Head of a Young Woman (1906) out of Spain. But now it seems that Botín will face even greater consequences, as a Spanish judge has prolonged his jail sentence and upped the fine he will have to pay.
Botín, who had previously been ordered to pay a €52.4 million (about $58.3 million) fine, will now face a €91.7 million (about $101.2 million) penalty. Additionally, he must now serve three years in jail. According to the Spanish newspaper El País, Judge Elena Raquel González Bayón amended her original decision following a request from the prosecutor’s office to review it.
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Botín’s lawyers, who have filed an appeal against the original judgement, told El País that they’ve “never seen anything like” the extended ruling. The judge wrote in the decision that “despite being fully aware of the administrative ban, the defendant transferred the painting to the schooner Adix in order to get him out of Spain.”
Botín, who helms the Spanish bank Grupo Santander, was accused of smuggling the $27.4 million painting Head of a Young Woman four years ago. In 2015, the Rose Period painting, which the Spanish Ministry of Culture had declared a national treasure barred from export, was found by authorities on Botín’s yacht in Corsica, France. Botín has asserted his innocence to the charges leveled against him, saying that he did not plan to sell the painting but rather was taking it to Geneva to be stored.
He bought the work in 1977 in London, and prosecutors have also alleged that Botín tried to sell it at Christie’s in 2012. The defense argued that the Spanish government has no right to adjudicate the work’s travels since it has not remained in Spain since Botín’s purchase.
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