Thieves stole Queen Elizabeth II of the Netherlands. He stole an Andy Warhol print of Elizabeth, but the heist failed | Ents and Art News

On November 2, 2024By Karl

“Amateur” thieves stole Andy Warhol’s Queen Elizabeth II as part of a botched gallery robbery in the Netherlands. He stole a screen print of Elizabeth.

The owner of the gallery, Mark Peet Visser, said that thieves stole two works of the iconic American pop artist and burst the gallery doors.

He added that both fingerprints were badly damaged on the street when the thieves realized they did not fit in the getaway car.

Mr Visser said the robbery was recorded on security cameras and that the whole thing was “amateurish”.

“The bomb attack was so strong that my entire building was destroyed” and nearby shops were also damaged, the gallery owner said.

“So they did that part of it well, too well in fact,” he added.

“Then they ran back to the car with the prints and it turned out they wouldn’t fit in the car.

“At that moment the works are being ripped out of the frames and you know they are damaged beyond repair because it is impossible to remove them undamaged.”

Thieves attacked the MPV Gallery in the Dutch town of Oisterwijk early on Friday.

Mr. Visser said they tried to steal four works from Warhol’s Reigning Queens series in 1985.

The series included portraits of the queens of the then United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and Swaziland, now called Eswatini.

Thieves took the portraits and ran away Queen Elizabeth II elizabeth and King Charles II of Denmark. “Margrethe,” said Mr. Visser.

But the traces of Queen Beatrix Holland and Ntombi Tfwala, now known as the queen mother of Eswatini, was abandoned.

Mr. Visser did not value the signed and numbered works, which will go on sale as part of an art fair later this month.

Forensic experts examined the badly damaged gallery and Dutch police are appealing for witnesses.