‘Amateur’ thieves destroy Warhol prints in botched Dutch gallery heist

Thieves blew open the door of an art gallery in the Netherlands and stole two works from a series of screen prints by American pop artist Andy Warhol, but left two others badly damaged on the street as they fled the scene stray, gallery. the owner said Friday.

Mark Peet Visser said the thieves tried to steal all four works from a 1985 Warhol series called Reigning Queens, which features portraits of the then-queens of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and what was then known under the name of Swaziland, but now it is Eswatini.

Mr Visser said the theft on Friday morning at the MPV Gallery in the town of Oisterwijk was caught on security cameras and described it as “amateur”.

“The bombing was so violent that my entire building was destroyed,” and nearby shops were also damaged, he said.

“So they did that part of it well, too well in fact. And then they ran to the car with the artwork and it turns out they won’t fit in the car.

“At that point, the works are ripped from their frames and you also know they are damaged beyond repair, because it is impossible to get them out undamaged.”

Mr Visser declined to put a value on the four signed and numbered works, which he had planned to offer for sale as decoration at an Amsterdam art fair later this month.

The thieves got away with the portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and Margrethe II of Denmark.

The fingerprints of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Ntombi Tfwala, who is now known as the Queen Mother of Eswatini, were left on the street as the thieves fled, Mr Visser said.

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