Tourist takes lost Sorolla painting from Seville to Murcia: 'I thought it was a cool frame'
A tourist took home from Seville a painting left in the street while its owners loaded their car, then called police after realising the Valencian artist’s work was on a wanted list.
Published on 01/07/2026 - 15:21 GMT+2•Updated 16:15
Andrés Hurtado didn't go to Seville in search of art. He was there for a few days' sightseeing and on Saturday, at around 4.30 p.m., in the kind of relentless heat that brooks no mercy, he came across something left lying on the pavement that caught his eye for the least artistic of reasons: the frame.
'I saw some lads dumping a painting in the street.' And he thought: 'What a cool frame.' 'To be honest, I didn't pay any attention to the painting itself, I just took it up to the hotel with me,' he told the local press. He walked off with it, quite literally, in a shopping bag he'd just bought in an Asian bazaar, unaware that he had just salvaged an original Sorolla that its owners had forgotten in the middle of a lightning-fast move to their beach house.
From suspicion to artificial intelligence
Doubts crept in almost straight away. 'With so many replicas and fakes around, I never imagined it could be an original Sorolla,' admitted Hurtado, a former supermarket worker who is currently unemployed. So he did what everyone does in 2026 when they have an existential doubt about a canvas: he asked artificial intelligence. The reply opened up the possibility that the work might be genuine: 'It told me it could well be so.'
Only half convinced, he even sounded out an auction house, which he says was ready to pay him thousands of euros for the piece. The snag was that Hurtado still didn't know the painting wasn't 'lost' in the romantic sense, but officially reported missing: its owners had already alerted the police after realising their mistake on that Seville pavement.
A happy ending
When he found out the work had owners and that they were looking for it, Hurtado changed tack: he contacted the police to make it clear this wasn't a theft but a find that had turned out badly for everyone. The painting travelled back with him to Murcia and this Wednesday officers are due to collect it from his home, in a town near the regional capital, so it can be returned.
Before that, though, there was time for a phone call. Hurtado spoke to the painting's owner, who confirmed what he already suspected: they had left it behind in the last-minute rush to get to the beach. Grateful, he promised him 'a present' for his honesty. For now, the only sure thing is that Hurtado will miss out on the auction, but he will have a story that no one will ever argue with in any bar.
