‘Amateur’ thieves steal two Warhol paintings, harm two more in botched robbery at Dutch gallery

On By Karl

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 thieves tried to steal all four works from the 1985 Warhol series. Reigning QueensFeaturing portraits of the then queens of Swaziland, a small landlocked kingdom in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and South Africa, 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 called it “amateurish.”

A man looks at Andy Warhol's painting of Queen Elizabeth II at the Paleis Het Loo museum in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. Shooting image of screen print Reigning Queens, 1985, one of sixteen prints of four queens depicting Elizabeth, Wednesday, October 9, 2024. It resembles a Warhol work stolen from a gallery in Oisterwijk, Netherlands, on Friday, November 1, 2024.
A man looks at Andy Warhol’s painting of Queen Elizabeth II at the Paleis Het Loo museum in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. Shooting image of the screen print Reigning Queens, 1985, one of sixteen prints of the four queens depicting Elizabeth, Wednesday, October 9, 2024. It resembles a Warhol work stolen from a gallery in Oisterwijk, the Netherlands, on Friday, November 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

“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 ripped out of their frames and you also know they are damaged beyond repair because you can’t get them without damage.” It’s impossible to remove.”

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.

Queen Elizabeth II of Denmark Screen prints depicting Margrethe are part of a series of sixteen prints of four queens titled Reigning Queens, 1985, created by Andy Warhol at the Paleis Het Loo museum in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, on Wednesday, October 9, 2024. The work was stolen from a gallery in Oisterwijk, the Netherlands, in the early hours of Friday, November 1, 2024.
Queen Elizabeth II of Denmark Screen prints depicting Margrethe are part of a series of sixteen prints of four queens titled Reigning Queens, 1985, created by Andy Warhol at the Paleis Het Loo museum in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, on Wednesday, October 9, 2024. The work was stolen from a gallery in Oisterwijk, the Netherlands, in the early hours of Friday, November 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

Thieves, King of England II. Elizabeth and Danish King Charles II. He seized Margrethe’s portraits.

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.