A Dutch art detective dubbed the “Indiana Jones of the Art World” has recovered another six paintings, including a portrait of William of Orange and the first depiction of a seventh-century king.
Art sleuth Arthur Brand made headlines around the world last month when he recovered a stolen Vincent van Gogh stuffed in an Ikea bag, and he believes that widely publicized success is leading to more discoveries.
Thieves made off with the latest six paintings from the town hall of Medemblik, in the north of the country, last month.
Photo courtesy of Arthur Brand, AFP
While the monetary value of the haul is not huge — about 100,000 euros (US$105,000) — the paintings are considered of great historical significance, including the earliest known portrait of Radbod, king of the Frisians from 680.
Brand was sitting at home on Friday night watching football when the doorbell rang and a man in a van asked him for help to unload some merchandise.
“I asked him: ‘What are we going to unload?’ He said with a smile: ‘Well, the paintings of Medemblik,’” Brand recounted.
After the initial burglary last month, Brand had been widely quoted in the Dutch press as saying the thieves should have stolen six bikes, as these would be easier to resell.
Those comments, plus the publicity surrounding the Van Gogh recovery, probably led the thieves to simply hand the paintings back, Brand said.
“In some cases, they burn them, just to get rid of the evidence, because they find out they cannot sell them,” he said.
“So I’m very thankful that they decided to do the right thing. Stealing is wrong, but if you return it, at least you do something right,” he added.
Now Brand is hoping that the momentum from the Van Gogh would lead to another prize recovery — a masterpiece by Frans Hals called Two Laughing Boys.
He also has his eye on recovering work from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, where paintings worth an estimated US$500 million from the likes of Johannes Vermeer, Edouard Manet and Rembrandt were stolen in 1990.
The authorities in Medemblik had offered a reward of 10,000 euros for the safe return of the paintings, but this has gone unclaimed.
Brand said he would not be collecting the cash himself.
“I told them to give me a good book voucher,” he quipped.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS