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29 March 2024

Daring art heist nets Monets, Picasso and more

Published
By Reuters, AFP

Thieves made off with  paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and  other famous modern artists from a museum in Rotterdam, Dutch  police said on Tuesday.

Paintings by Paul Gauguin, Lucian Freud and Meyer de Haan,  were also on the list of seven paintings stolen from Rotterdam's  Kunsthal museum overnight, police said on their website.

Neither the police nor the Kunsthal were immediately able to put a value on the haul, but the theft is one of the art world's  most dramatic in recent years and will likely be worth millions.

The list of paintings on the Dutch police website were:
 1. Pablo Picasso: "Tête d'Arlequin"
 2. Henri Matisse: "la Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune"
 3. Claude Monet:  "Waterloo Bridge, London"
 4. Claude Monet:  "Charing Cross Bridge, London"
 5. Paul Gauguin:  "Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte, dite la   
 Fiancée"
 6. Meyer de Haan: "Autoportrait" (circa 1889 - '91)
 7. Lucian Freud:  "Woman with Eyes Closed" (2002)

Kunsthal, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, does not  have its own collection and exhibits different types of art,  including photos, sculptures, design and fashion.

It had only just opened a new exhibition a few days ago to celebrate its 20th anniversary, including paintings by Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondriaan, Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Freud,  and others showing examples of impressionism, expressionism, and other modern art movements.

More than 150 paintings on display in the exhibit came from the privately owned Triton Foundation collection, and many of  the works are worth a million euros or more, Kunsthal's former  executive Wim van Krimpen told Dutch public radio station Radio  1.

The world's major art thefts

Major art thefts around the world over the past decade, after seven masterpieces were stolen from a Dutch museum:
 
October 16, 2012: Seven masterpieces, including priceless works by Picasso, Matisse, Monet and Gauguin, are stolen in a night heist at Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum.
 
August 21, 2010: Van Gogh's "Poppy Flowers", worth $55 million (42 million euros), is stolen from Cairo's Mahmoud Khalil museum after it is cut out of its frame. It has yet to be found.
 
May 20, 2010: A lone thief steals works by Matisse, Picasso and three other modern masters from a Paris gallery as it emerges an alarm was out of order at the time of the $120 million  heist. The works are still missing.
 
February 10, 2008: Four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, Van Gogh and Monet valued at more than 112 million euros are stolen from a Zurich museum in Switzerland. The Van Gogh and the Monet are later recovered; the other two have not been found.
 
August 5, 2007: Two Bruegels, a Sisley and a Monet, all considered priceless, are stolen from the Jules Cheret museum in Nice, France. They are recovered the following year. In December 2011, a French court convicts five men arrested in an FBI sting and sentences them to between two and nine years.
 
25 February, 2006: Works by Salvador Dali, Picasso, Matisse and Monet are taken from the Chacara do Ceu museum during the annual carnival celebrations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They have not been recovered.
 
August 22, 2004: Edvard Munch's masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna", valued at $100 million in total, are stolen from an Oslo museum. They are recovered damaged in 2006.
 
December 7, 2002: Two Van Goghs, valued at several million dollars, are stolen from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. Although two men were arrested and charged over the theft, the pictures have so far not been found.