Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Associated Press

Dutch museum says van Gogh painting stolen in overnight raid

By MIKE CORDER

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A painting by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh was stolen in an overnight smash-and-grab raid on a museum that was closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, police and the museum said Monday.

The Singer Laren museum east of Amsterdam said that “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884 ” by the Dutch master was taken in the early hours of Monday. By early afternoon, all that could be seen from the outside of the museum was a large white panel covering a door in the building’s glass facade.

Museum General Director Evert van Os said the institution that houses the collection of American couple William and Anna Singer is “angry, shocked, sad” at the theft of the painting.

The value of the work, which was on loan from the Groninger Museum in the northern Dutch city of Groningen, was not immediately known. Police are investigating the theft.

“I’m shocked and unbelievably annoyed that this has happened,” said Singer Laren museum director Jan Rudolph de Lorm.

Read more: https://apnews.com/e635b833e60dfcb01351752976d818df

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I've always wanted one.

You can have it back when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

[jimfields33]

1. Your comments gave me a well needed laugh. Thanks!!!

I always wonder how they sell the paintings. I know black market but still. Steal it and put it in a vault? I think that’s weird. You can’t hang it, brag about it or anything.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. I have it. Me, me, me. Come and get it, coppers.

You just have it and never talk about it.

I'm thinking of a Matthew Broderick movie:

The Freshman (1990 film)

[jimfields33]

3. Good movie!!!!

Well you enjoy it.....under the bed? 😂

[flibbitygiblets]

7. Loved that movie! (At least the thief (Brando) left a fake Mona Lisa.)

The Godfather references throughout were great.

[MosheFeingold]

10. The very very wealthy

And, no, not Bill Gates variety. The old, generational, wealth, types whose fortunes span centuries.

Could buy it and put it away for great, great, great, great grandchildren.

Long after any claim for it would be invalidated just due to passage of time.

They think long term like this.

In the mean time, it sits in a private study.

Lots of the art the Nazis stole is tucked away like this. Untaxable, unknown, generational wealth.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. The Simpsons: German man gets grandpa Simpsons war treasure artwork

The Simpsons German man gets grandpa Simpsons war treasure artwork
32,239 views•Oct 31, 2015

Aaron James
512 subscribers

A scene from the Simpsons where stolen Artwork from WW2 was retrieved by Grandpa Simpson and returned to the rightful German owner of the art.

[CTyankee]

22. This is a popular myth. See my post #18.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

28. You're implying a family that's a criminal enterprise, spanning generations, ...

... a family in which the "gene of amorality" is passes, along with training in selfishness, in exploitation, is the rule. I'm happy we have no such families here, especially not in the White House.

To disagree with you: the passage of time makes no difference. Attorneys for the Singer family will keep an eye out for the surfacing of this painting for as long as that family has money. And the responsible art museum curators will also have this on their watch list. For centuries.

To ever display this painting publicly would take the hubris of invincibility and evil.

[MosheFeingold]

29. After a couple hundred years

There are no heirs. Or no heirs that care.

Or the crooks do things like go to a corrupt country and “buy” it where the laws allow for good title to pass from a thief. (This was the problem in much of Europe with Nazi stolen art — the laws only recently being changed.)

Adverse possession laws often also apply, again depending in the country.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Born on this day, March 30, 1853, Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Great timing.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Value is the scarcity of competence

often seen in the nascent stages of a movement. I doubt modern art will ever command such value, there's just too much of it, just like too much writing, too much technology, too many degrees. Find what is rare, and go there. Deliver me from the River Nile of creations, they are but neon signs passing outside my window.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. When I'm not working from home, I work across the street (sort of) from the National Gallery of Art.

There's one room in there with six van Goghs hanging on the wall.

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.

Here's one of them.

https://media.nga.gov/iiif/public/objects/1/0/6/3/8/2/106382-primary-0-nativeres.ptif/full/!440,400/0/default.jpg

Vincent van Gogh (painter)
Dutch, 1853 - 1890
Self-Portrait
1889
oil on canvas
overall: 57.79 × 44.5 cm (22 3/4 × 17 1/2 in.)
framed: 82.9 x 69.2 x 6.7 cm (32 5/8 x 27 1/4 x 2 5/8 in.)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney
1998.74.5
On View: West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 83

[bucolic_frolic]

14. I can't define art, but I know it when I see it

Yeah, that's one of them, scarce, rare, competent, a movement.

I've been there.

[HotTeaBag]

8. This is an extreme example, but I think we'll see a bit more of this

in the coming weeks and months as places with things inside of them that people want stay shuttered.

[a la izquierda]

9. This is the most Dutch reaction ever:

“I’m shocked and unbelievably annoyed that this has happened,” said Singer Laren museum director Jan Rudolph de Lorm.

[FM123]

11. I love the Dutch response!

It gave me a little chuckle, really....

[tavernier]

16. He was not amused.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

13. Great films and stolen artwork: Burt Lancaster, in "The Train." SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

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543,222 views•Jul 16, 2013

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[elleng]

19. Thanks.

a great movie

[paleotn]

15. Anyone know where Danny Ocean is?

[RussBLib]

17. Wondering when bold criminals will take advanrage

Of this lockdown. Shit, in NYC, over 10% of cops are out sick.

[CTyankee]

18. From a lecture I attended by a staff member at Museum of Fine Arts in Boston: most art theft

does not involve such plots as have been listed here. The theft is usually done by minor thieves who do not know that such art is virtually worthless to them. They try to sell it and either get caught doing so or end up leaving it somewhere (in one case a locker at a train station) and publishing where the art could be found.

This will turn up sooner or later.

[JohnnyRingo]

20. Bastards.

Not only the thieves, but the museum as well for lax security for such a treasure. Whether it goes to a private collection or becomes so hot it's destroyed, it will likely never be seen again.

[LudwigPastorius]

21. I have this one on my bedroom wall.

(...the real one is safe in Chicago)

[Collimator]

23. My first though upon reading this story:

Huh. I guess Life does go on. . ?

[Princess Turandot]

24. The painting in question...

...and a very short article from Wikipedia. This was painted in May 1884.


The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884

[la-trucker]

25. It can never be sold openly

what's the point in stealing it?

[CTyankee]

26. See my post 18. They can't sell it but they don't know that.

When they find out, they'll arrange a way to get it off their hands.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

27. I'd bet there's a lively black market

where an enterprising soul can sell bears' gallbladders, tigers' teeth, rhino horn, dutch masters paintings.

Maybe the purchase was arranged before the theft, and it's already on its way to Shanghai, Tokyo, Moscow, Riyadh, beyond the reach of Interpol.

Or maybe I watch too many movies.

[la-trucker]

30. That painting will fetch between 6 and 60 million USD all cash

and after purchase it can never be displayed or resold.

I doubt there are many people in the world who have that kind of cash would risk it.

[greenjar_01]

32. Hey Sinnerman, where ya gonna run to?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

33. Video footage shows how a sledgehammer-wielding thief broke in and took the van Gogh

Video footage shows how a sledgehammer-wielding thief broke into a museum in the Netherlands and walked off with a painting by Vincent van Gogh.

Link to tweet

[a la izquierda]

34. I'm still chuckling about the response of the museum director. nt.

[CTyankee]

35. Well, I think she knows it will turn up pretty soon but I'm sure she worries about the shape it

will be in when they do get it back.