Dutch ‘Indiana Jones’ art sleuth recovers stolen Van Gogh painting taken from Singer Laren Museum during pandemic
- Arthur Brand took possession of the missing painting, the 1884 ‘Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring’, worth more than US$3 million on Monday
- The painting was burgled from the Singer Laren Museum near Amsterdam on March 30, 2020 in a heist that made headlines around the world
A Dutch art detective has recovered a precious Vincent van Gogh painting that was stolen from a museum in a daring midnight heist during the coronavirus lockdown three-and-a-half years ago, police said on Tuesday.
Arthur Brand took possession of the missing painting, the 1884 Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring, worth between three and six million euros (US$3.2 and US$6.4 million), at his Amsterdam home on Monday, stuffed in a blue Ikea bag.
The artwork depicts the garden of the rectory at Nuenen, the small Dutch town where Van Gogh’s parents lived.
Brand, dubbed the “Indiana Jones of the Art World” for tracing a series of high-profile lost artworks, said that confirming the painting was the stolen Van Gogh was “one of the greatest moments of my life.”
“Arthur Brand, in cooperation with the Dutch police, has solved this matter,” Richard Bronswijk of the Dutch police arts crime unit said.
