2023-09-12 16:09:23
“The garden of the presbytery of Nuenen in the spring” had been stolen during the 2020 confinement. It was found on Monday by an atypical detective.
Signed by Van Gogh, the small dark brown painting reappeared at the bottom of a blue IKEA bag, covered in bubble wrap and placed in a pillowcase. The Dutch authorities confirmed on Monday September 11 that “The Garden of the Nuenen Presbytery in Spring”, painted by the Dutch master in 1884 and estimated at between three and six million euros, had been handed over to its owner, the Groningen Museum, one of the largest in the Netherlands, three years after being stolen.
The man who made this restitution possible is Arthur Brand, an atypical detective, a specialist in investigating stolen paintings and nicknamed “the Indiana Jones of the art world”. “Arthur Brand, in cooperation with the Dutch police, has solved this problem,” said Richard Bronswijk of the Dutch police’s art crime unit.
The painting had been loaned by the Groningen museum to that of Singer Laren, near Amsterdam, where it was stolen on March 30, 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The burglar had broken down a glass door of the museum in the middle of the night. The whole thing had been filmed by the video system, so that we could see the thief fleeing with the painting hidden under his right arm. He was identified a year later as Nils M., who had also stolen a masterpiece by Dutch Baroque painter Frans Hals, “Two Laughing Young Men,” during another heist. The affair earned him eight years in prison.
“After a few months, I learned from a source from the criminal world who was the one who had bought the Van Gogh” from Nils M., said Arthur Brand, who, like the Dutch police, increased calls for restitution of the painting for three years.
The buyer, Peter Roy K, was behind bars at the time, serving a 12-year prison sentence for large-scale cocaine trafficking. He wanted to use the chart to negotiate a reduced sentence. A detective must be on the side of the law, at least in his statements, Brand claims to have insisted that this was not the case.
Two weeks ago, no one knew where the Van Gogh was when the detective was contacted by a man who wanted to return it. Arthur Brand then persuaded the man – who the detective said had “nothing to do with the theft” – to return the work. “The man said to me: ‘I want to return the Van Gogh. “It caused me a lot of trouble,” because it could not be used as a bargaining chip, said “the Indiana Jones of the art world.”
The 54-year-old Dutch investigator is not his first attempt. He would have found more than 200 stolen works of art, such as “Adolescence” by Salvador Dalí, a ring by Oscar Wilde, or the bronze statues of “Hitler’s horses”. From this adventure, he wrote a book: “Hitler’s Horses – The incredible hunt for the last treasure of the Third Reich”. In the Netherlands, he even has his own documentary series called “Der Kunstdetective” (“The Art Detective”).
“Confirming that it was indeed the stolen Van Gogh was one of the greatest moments of my life,” he told AFP. I couldn’t believe it.” The painting was returned to the director of the Groningen museum who had loaned it to the Singer Laren museum, but Hals’ painting remains lost in nature. Let the Museum Hofje Van Aerden in Leerdam, owner of these “Two Laughing Young Men”, rest assured: Arthur Brand is involved in the case.
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