Two Andy Warhol prints are missing from a southern Netherlands art gallery, and two more are damaged after a botched heist.
The robbery also blew open the gallery door, owner of MPV Gallery Mark Peet Visser said.
The early Friday heist at the Oisterwijk gallery, caught on security cameras, saw the thieves attempt to take all four works from a 1985 Warhol series called Reigning Queens.
The series features portraits of the then-queens of the Commonwealth, the Netherlands, Denmark and Swaziland — a small landlocked kingdom in southern Africa which is now called Eswatini.
It was created two years before the American artist’s death, when all four queens were in power.
Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands poses in front of her Andy Warhol portrait. (AFP: Nick Gammon)
Mr Peet Visser said the thieves kicked off the heist with a “bomb attack” to blow open the gallery door, but it “was so violent that my entire building was destroyed” and nearby stores were also damaged.
“So they did that part of it well, too well actually,” he said.
Local police said in a press release authorities were first alerted to the scene after a “loud bang” was heard at 3am on Friday.
Upon seeing the damage to the building and surrounds, a police explosives scout and forensic investigators were deployed.
Dutch media NOS reported the “entrance of the gallery was blown out and there was glass all around the building” after the bombing.
Screen prints depicting Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, part of the Reigning Queens series. (AP: Peter Dejong)
Not much is known yet about the theft “but it is strange that explosives were used”, Dutch art detective Arthur Brand said.
“That’s not common for art thefts,” Mr Brand said.
The thieves got away with portraits of Elizabeth II of the Commonwealth and Margrethe II of Denmark.
But Mr Peet Visser said the “moment the works are ripped out of the frames” they would be “damaged beyond repair, because it is impossible to get them out undamaged”.
He said the thieves’s next challenge would prove to be the getaway vehicle.
“They ran to the car with the artworks and it turns out that they won’t fit in the car,” he said.
The prints of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Ntombi Tfwala — who is now known as the queen mother of Eswatini — were left badly damaged on the street as the thieves fled, the gallery owner said.
Screen prints depicting Queen Ntombi Tfwala, who is now known as the queen mother of Eswatini. (AP: Peter Dejong)
Mr Peet Visser called the heist attempt “amateurish” and declined to put a value on the four signed and numbered works, though he noted they were “worth a considerable sum”.
Mr Brand, however, said the stolen artworks were “not unique and most likely tens of them were made”.
“This makes it easier to sell than unique works, but not that much easier,” he said.
The theft comes as Mr Peet Visser had had been planning to offer them for sale as a set at an art fair in Amsterdam later this month.
ABC/wires