German police have been searching for a genuine Picasso vase after a man had accidentally left it on a train in mid-February.

The vase, which is worth more than $11000, was made by Picasso in 1953 in his Madoura ceramics studio in the south of France.

The 76-year-old man left the vase behind when he changed trains on his way from Kassel in central Germany to the western city of Dusseldorf.