A man strolled into a San Francisco gallery on Sunday, snatched a Salvador Dalí painting and casually walked out with the stolen art.
The painting, titled “Surrealistic Bullfight: Burning Giraffe,” was taken from Dennis Rae Fine Art while the gallery was open.
Rasjad Hopkins, the gallery’s associate director who was working at the time, said he had his back turned from the door and didn’t see the man walk in or leave.
“Snatch and run,” Hopkins described the theft to NPR.
Surveillance footage from a nearby hotel shows the man in a cap holding the hand-colored etching, which is worth $20,000, while walking down Geary Street in the Union Square neighborhood.
The gallery’s co-owner David Schachdoes told NBC News that it does not lock up its art, so the piece was grabbed off the wall.
San Francisco Police Department believe the work was taken sometime between 4:40 p.m. and 5:45 p.m.
The rare piece was the first work in a series by the late Spanish painter that riffed on works by Pablo Picasso.
“It’s partly teasing Picasso and partly making full of bullfighting. It’s both,” Hopkins said.
