‘Amateur’ thieves stole 2 Warhol prints and damaged 2 more in a failed robbery at a Dutch gallery

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Thieves blew down the door of an art gallery in the south of the Netherlands and stole two works from American pop artist Andy Warhol’s famous screen print series, leaving two more badly damaged works on the street as they fled the scene of the botched robbery. the gallery owner said Friday.

Mark Peet Visser said the thieves tried to steal all four works from a 1985 Warhol series called “Reigning Queens,” which featured portraits of the then queens of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and Swaziland, a small landlocked kingdom in South Africa. it is now called Eswatini.

In a phone interview, Visser said the robbery at the MPV Gallery in the town of Oisterwijk early Friday was recorded on security cameras and described it as “amateurish.”

“The bomb attack was so strong that my entire building was destroyed” and nearby stores were also damaged, he said. “So they did that part well, very well. Then they ran to the car with the works of art, and it turns out they don’t fit in the car. … At that moment the works are removed. And you know the frames are damaged beyond repair, because it is impossible to remove them without being damaged.” ”

Visser refused to value the four signed and numbered works, which he plans to offer as a set at an art fair to be held in Amsterdam later this month.

Thieves took the portraits and ran away elizabeth United Kingdom II and Margrethe Denmark II. Visser said traces of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Ntombi Tfwala, now known as the queen mother of Eswatini, were left on the street as the thieves escaped.

Police appealed for witnesses as forensic experts examined the badly damaged gallery on Friday.