Stolen Masterpieces Burned to Ashes
If you follow art news, you may already know that a rather daring heist occurred in Rotterdam last year.
Paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin, Meyer de Haan, Lucian Freud and two by Monet were stolen on Tuesday from a gallery in Rotterdam in what will rank as one of the most spectacular art heists of modern times.
The dawn raid at the Kunsthal museum in the Netherlands’ second largest city was described by police as a well-planned and bold operation.
A man pauses to look at the empty space where Henri Matisse’s La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune used to hang at Rotterdam’s Kunsthal. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP
It’s the stuff of movies, this – a dawn raid, a daring heist, masterpieces worth millions of dollars. Well, maybe not masterpieces but certainly extremely valuable work by some of the best known names in early modernism. But there’s a rather comically dark ending to it all – it turns out that the Mum of one of the thieves got scared for her son and burned them in her stove to destroy the evidence. Not too scared to spill the beans when the cops came knocking, evidently, but hindsight is 20/20.
The mother of suspect Radu Doragu said she incinerated the artworks, valued at over 100 million euros ($130 million), in her stove in a bid to “destroy any evidence”.
“After the arrest of my son in January 2013, I was very scared because I knew that what had happened was very serious,” Mediafax reported Dogaru’s mother as saying, citing court documents.
“I placed the suitcase containing the paintings in the stove. I put in some logs, slippers and rubber shoes and waited until they had completely burned.”
Agence France-Press
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- 'Girl in Front of Open Window' by Paul Gauguin, 1898
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- 'Harlequin Head' by Pablo Picasso, 1971
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- 'Reading Girl in White and Yellow' by Henri Matisse, 1919
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- 'Self-Portrait' by Meyer de Haan, 1890
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- 'Charing Cross Bridge, London' by Claude Monet, 1901
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- 'Waterloo Bridge, London' by Claude Monet,1901
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- 'Woman with Eyes Closed' by Lucian Freud 2002
I suppose the lesson to be learned here is that if you steal 100 million euros’ worth of art, don’t tell Mum. Or at least keep her away from the matches.
Just as a follow-up, forensic reports indicate that there are indeed remnants of paintings in the oven. The thief’s mother has more recently declared that she did not burn the paintings, but won’t say where they are. As forensic evidence suggests there are indeed remnants of burnt paintings in the ashes, the police are proceeding with the assumption that recanting of the original confession is merely subterfuge.
//edit, September 11:
Yet another update:
Apparently the paintings have not been burned, but the ringleader of the art heist gang won’t say where they are other than some vague clues…
