The Associated press is all over this morning’s major art theft in the Netherlands:
“Those thieves got one hell of a haul,” said Chris Marinello, who directs the Art Loss Register.
The heist at the Kunsthal museum is one of the largest in years in the Netherlands, and is a stunning blow for the private Triton Foundation collection, which was being exhibited publicly as a group for the first time.
The collection was on display as part of celebrations surrounding the museum’s 20th anniversary.
Police spokeswoman Willemieke Romijn said investigators were reviewing videotapes of the theft, which took place around 3 a.m. local time, and calling for any witnesses to come forward.
The Art Loss Register’s Marinello said the items taken could be worth “hundreds of millions of euros” if sold legally at auction. However, he said that was now impossible, as the paintings have already been registered internationally as stolen.
The stolen paintings were Pablo Picasso’s 1971 “Harlequin Head”; Claude Monet’s 1901 “Waterloo Bridge, London” and “Charing Cross Bridge, London”; Henri Matisse’s 1919 “Reading Girl in White and Yellow”; Paul Gauguin’s 1898 “Girl in Front of Open Window”; Meyer de Haan’s “Self-Portrait,” around 1890, and Lucian Freud’s 2002 work “Woman with Eyes Closed.”
Picasso and Monets Stolen in Dutch Heist (AP/New York Times)
