2023-10-17 12:13:06
After a Van Gogh found in September, Dutch detective Arthur Brand this time got his hands back on six works stolen a month ago.
Sometimes, the “Indiana Jones of the art world” recovers paintings after more or less incredible adventures. Sometimes they just fall into his hands. This is what happened on Friday October 13 for Arthur Brand, a 54-year-old Dutchman, already known for having found a Van Gogh painting in September.
The detective specializing in the art world was comfortably seated on his sofa on Friday evening, the Netherlands – France qualifying match in the background, when the doorbell at his home in Amsterdam rang. A man in a van then requested his help to unload goods. “I asked him: “What are we going to unload?” He replied with a smile: ‘well, the Medemblik paintings’,” says Arthur Brand.
Six paintings come out of the man’s truck: one is quite long, the others smaller. Among them, a portrait of William of Orange and the first representation of Radboud, king of the Frisians from 680 AD. If the monetary value of the loot is not very high – around 100,000 euros – the discovery has some historical importance.
“They would have been better off stealing six bikes”
The paintings, exhibited in the town hall of the coastal town of Medemblik, nearly 60 kilometers north of the Dutch capital, were stolen on Friday October 1. Arthur Brand, interviewed at the time of their disappearance by the local press, mocked the criminals: “They would have done better to steal six bikes, it would have been much easier to resell.”
Those comments, along with publicity about his previous finds, likely led the thieves to simply return the paintings, according to the art world detective. “In some cases, they burn them, just to get rid of the evidence, because they find out they can’t sell it,” he explains, before adding: “If you return it, at least you’re doing something good.”
I recovered the 6 paintings that were stolen last month from the town hall of Medemblik, the Netherlands, Historically very important paintings. Especially the one showing King Radbod, the last ruler of Frisia. The oldest portrait known of him. And one of ‘William of Orange.’ pic.twitter.com/jNbXTSXIRA
— Arthur Brand (art detective) (@brand_arthur) October 17, 2023
A second find in a short time for the man who had already made headlines in September, after finding a Van Gogh painting in an Ikea bag. Throughout his career, “the Indiana Jones of the art world” is said to have unearthed more than 200 stolen works of art, such as Adolescence by Salvador Dalí, a ring by Oscar Wilde or even the bronze statues of the Horses of ‘Hitler. A career that has given him some fame – he has published a book about his hunt for Hitler’s Horses, and even has his own documentary series called Der Kunstdetective (“the art detective”) in the Netherlands.
Today, Arthur Brand is exploring several avenues to find other masterpieces: Two Laughing Boys, a Frans Hals stolen in 2020, as well as those missing after the burglary of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, in the United States . The key to this investigation are paintings by Vermeer, Manet and Rembrandt, together worth nearly 500 million dollars. For the Medemblik affair, Arthur Brand did not ask for the 10,000 euro reward for the return of the stolen paintings, preferring instead to be given “a good book”.
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