Amid the growing concern about the Coronavirus, many businesses have taken the necessary precautions and shut their doors to the public. While this step is a must to keep people all over the world safe, it has put other things at risk.
Early Monday morning, March 30th, at around 3:15, thieves broke into a Dutch museum that was closed due to the Coronavirus and stole a Vincent van Gogh painting. The painting, Parsonage Garden at Neunen in Spring, was valued at up to 5 million euros (roughly 5,400,000 United States Dollars). However, according to the Guardian, another painting of “Van Gogh’s Nuenen period sold recently for about £10m at a Dutch auction.”
“Nuenen period” refers to the period of time that Van Gogh was with his parents in Nuenen from 1883 to 1884, where his father was a minister.
The thieves broke into the Singer Laren museum, near Amsterdam, by crashing through the front door, which was glass. This triggered a burglar alarm, but the thieves managed to escape before the police arrived on the scene.
No other art appears to be missing.
Van Gogh’s painting was one of 70 Dutch paintings, watercolors and drawings from the 19th century in an exhibition titled Mirror of the Soul.
Coincidentally, or perhaps not coincidentally at all, the painting was stolen on Van Gogh’s birthday, who was born 167 years ago.
While the New York Times claims that, “Coronavirus or not, guards are not usually posted at the museum overnight. The alarm system is linked straight to the local police,” it is hard not to feel that these museums and businesses are being taken advantage of.
The Singer Laren museum had the painting on loan from the Groninger Museum who usually holds it in their permanent collection. The Singer Laren museum director, Rudolph de Lorm says, “This is exactly what you don’t want as a museum that has a painting on loan. A beautiful and moving painting by one of our greatest painters, stolen from the community … This must come back as soon as possible so that we can enjoy and be comforted by this beautiful art again.” He made the point that while it is bad for both museums involved, it is also a pity because these paintings should be appreciated by the public and not kept away by one person.
The Groninger Museum described the painting in the following statement, “The work from 1884, oil on paper and panel is the only painting by Van Gogh in the collection of the Groninger Museum. We are very shocked by this news. The investigation is currently in full swing and no more can be said about it due to the police investigation.”
NPR, who refers to this whole situation as a “smash-and-grab,” brings attention to Arthur Brandt’s, an art detective, tweet. In his tweet, he says, “Last night this Van Gogh painting was stolen from the Singer Museum in Laren, the Netherlands. The hunt is on…” and includes a photograph of the painting itself.
One thing is for sure, this entire situation is bringing the art world together in an effort to find the thief, and get the beautiful piece of work back to its rightful place.
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