Andy Warhol
Last Friday, some royal portraits by Andy Warhol were stolen from a gallery in the Netherlands in an ‘explosive’ heist.
In 1985, Andy Warhol created a series of large prints known as the Reigning Queens series. The series consists of portraits of four different queens from around the world reigning at the time: Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, and Queen Ntfombi of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). Warhol experimented with various color combinations throughout the series and even created what became known as a Royal Edition, using ground-up glass to provide a sparkle. MPV Gallery in Oisterwijk, a small town about 40 miles southeast of Rotterdam, had several of the Warhols on display since they were due to be exhibited at the PAN art fair in Amsterdam starting November 24th. However, at around 3:05 am on the morning of Friday, November 1st, a group of burglars broke into the gallery using explosives to destroy the front doors. The gallery owner, Mark Peet Visser, later said that nearly the entire front of the building was destroyed, with the door handle found 160 feet away. The robbers made off with four Warhol prints, one of each queen. However, they found themselves in trouble when they could not fit them into their car. So they decided to rip two of them from their frames (one of Queen Elizabeth and the other of Queen Margrethe) and leave the other two damaged in the street. Visser called the act “appalling” and “unprofessional”.
Police have carried out several raids in the surrounding area, first finding the getaway car and then arresting one of the suspects. The unnamed 23-year-old man was apprehended in the nearby town of Berkel-Enschot. There has been no mention that the stolen Warhols have been recovered. Arthur Brand, a prominent art detective who relocated a stolen Van Gogh painting last year, has commented that the perpetrators were likely not well-versed in stealing art from a museum or gallery setting. “I think it was some criminals who are not really specialized in art theft, saw an opportunity and thought: Let’s first steal them and afterwards see what we can do, and everything went wrong.” Even though stolen modern and contemporary art is relatively easier to sell than Old Master paintings, the prints are all catalogued and numbered as part of the series. With this readily-available information, plus the news attention the robbery has received, it will become incredibly difficult for the robbers to sell or otherwise dispose of the Warhols.