Stolen Van Gogh works return to museum after 14 years in the hands of criminals
THE Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam welcomed home two paintings by the Dutch master yesterday, more than 14 years after they were ripped off the museum’s wall in a heist.
Axel Rueger, the museum’s director, called their return one of the “most special days in the history of our museum”.
The paintings, the 1882 View of the Sea at Scheveningen, and 1884-85 Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen, were discovered last year by police in Italy investigating suspected mobsters for cocaine trafficking.
The two paintings were wrapped in cotton sheets, stuffed in a box and hidden behind a wall in a lavatory, said Gen Gianluigi D’Alfonso, of the Italian financial police, who was at the museum to watch yesterday’s unveiling.
They were found in a farmhouse near Naples as Italian police seized €20million worth of assets, including villas, apartments and a small plane. Investigators contend that the assets are linked to two Camorra drug kingpins, Mario Cerrone and Raffaele Imperiale.
“After years shrouded in darkness, they can now shine again,” said Jet Bussemaker, the Dutch minister for education, culture and science as the paintings were revealed.
The works were “considered among the artworks most searched for in the world, on the FBI’s list of the top 10 art crimes,” Italy’s interior ministry said.
The paintings were taken to the museum’s conservation studio for repair, although they suffered remarkably little damage. In 2002, the thieves had climbed up a ladder and smashed a window to get into the museum before ripping the paintings out of their frames and fleeing.
“It is not only a miracle that the works have been recovered but it’s even more miraculous almost that they are in a relatively unharmed condition,” Mr Rueger said.
The Scheveningen seascape is one of Van Gogh’s earliest works and the only painting in the museum’s collection painted during his time in The Hague.
The painting of the church in Nuenen portrays the village where his parents lived.
“He had painted it as a gift to his mother, so it’s a very personal and emotional connection,” Mr Rueger said.