playing card D3: Goya: Portrait of Doña Antonia Zárate (1806)
April 13, 2020
playing card C2: Paul Rubens: The Three Graces (1635)
April 13, 2020
Van Gogh: View of the Sea at Scheveningen (1882)
completed
stolen
longest side (cm)
est. value ($ mill.)
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh's painting Beach at Scheveningen in Stormy Weather is one of over 850 well-known oil paintings by the Dutch master and co-founder of modern painting. Van Gogh created the artwork on The Hague Beach in 1882 while the storm raged. It has been proven that Vincent van Gogh actually painted the picture on the beach in stormy weather that day, because grains of sand were discovered in the color. The oil painting has the dimensions 34.5 x 51 cm. It was stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam on December 7th, 2002 and has not reappeared since.
The art theft from “View of the Sea at Scheveningen” (1882)
In the early morning hours of Saturday, December 7, 2002, thieves penetrate the roof of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. At 8 a.m. in the morning, museum employees notice the loss of two paintings - two hours before the museum opens its doors. The paintings are “The Church of Nuenen with churchgoers” (1884) and “Beach of Scheveningen in stormy weather” (1882). After the police rushes in, the museum is closed to the public until the afternoon for evidence.
The police are astonished because there are security guards who control the premises and the surrounding museum area 24 hours a day. There are also video cameras and infrared systems in the museum with the world's largest collection of Van Gogh's works. The police find a broken window on the first floor of the building, a rope and a 4.5m ladder. The thieves presumably got onto the roof with the ladder and then roped off a window on the first floor.
The theft is particularly bitter for the Van Gogh Museum if the paintings "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1884) and "Beach of Scheveningen in stormy weather" (1882) do not reappear: the two stolen paintings are not insured. The value of the paintings in 2002 was 30 million euros.
Rediscovery of the painting at a Neapolitan drug lord
People from the area of the mafia are said to have received a crucial tip: During a raid near Naples in the house of an Italian drug lord, two oil paintings were discovered that later turned out to be van Gogh's lost works. The Italian drug boss Raffaele Imperiale has been in custody since February 2016.
The two oil paintings "Beach of Scheveningen in stormy weather" (1882) and "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen" (1884) remained relatively intact. They were found rolled up in cotton towels. Both paintings are valued at $ 100 million - $80 million more than in 2002 at the time of the art theft.
Famous art robbery: Vincent van Gogh's “Beach of Scheveningen in stormy weather” (1882) was stolen from the Amsterdam Van Gogh Museum together with his work “Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen” on December 7, 2002. Both paintings were rediscovered during a drug raid in Naples in 2016.