Seven paintings by master artists including Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet were stolen from a museum in Rotterdam in an early-hours heist, Dutch police said Tuesday.
The theft 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 Kunsthal'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. Police have yet to reveal how the heist took place.
The stolen works were:
- Picasso's 1971 Harlequin Head
- 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, dating from around 1890
- Lucian Freud's 2002 work Woman with Eyes Closed.
Mariette Maaskant of the Kunsthal museum said the paintings taken were of "considerable value."
Chris Marinello, director of The Art Loss Register, which tracks stolen artworks, said it was clear some of the most valuable pieces in the collection were targeted.
"Those thieves got one hell of a haul," Marinello said.
He added that the items taken could even be worth "hundreds of millions of euros" — if sold legally at auction. However, Marinello said that was now impossible, as the paintings have already been registered internationally as stolen.
The thieves have limited options available, such as blackmailing the owners or the museum or the insurers, he said.
They could conceivably sell the paintings in the criminal market too, though any sale would likely be a small fraction of their potential auction value.
Avant-garde art
The museum's director Emily Ansenk had been in Istanbul, Turkey, on business but was returning Tuesday. The Kunsthal museum is a display space that has no permanent collection of its own: the name means "art gallery" in Dutch.
The Triton Foundation is a collection of avant-garde art put together by multimillionaire Willem Cordia, an investor and businessman, and his wife, Marijke Cordia-Van der Laan. The Cordia family collection includes works by more than 150 famed artists. Others whose work was on show include Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Edgar Degas and Andy Warhol.
Curators of the Cordia family collection aim to have the works on display for the public, and pieces have been shown in the past.
The museum is closed Tuesday due to the police investigation.
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