Van Gogh painting stolen from Dutch museum during coronavirus shutdown

AMSTERDAM - Thieves stole a painting by Vincent van Gogh overnight from the Singer Laren Museum in the Netherlands, its director said on Monday.

The gallery, in the town of Laren to the east of Amsterdam, is currently shut to the public due to the coronavirus epidemic.

The painting "Lentetuin", or "Spring Garden," which depicts the garden of the rectory at Neunen and dates to 1884, had been on loan from the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands.

"I am shocked and absolutely livid that this has happened," Jan Rudolph de Lorm, director of the Singer Laren Museum, said in a video statement posted on YouTube.

"This splendid and moving artwork by one of our great artists has been stolen, taken from the community," he said.

Police said the thieves had forced the building's glass front doors open at around 3.15 a.m. (0115 GMT).

The stolen painting depicts a woman in a garden with sparse red-flowered bushes and the church building in the background.

Dutch museums have been closed because of the coronavirus outbreak since March 12.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Van Gogh landscape sells for $8.27M at auction

PARIS -- An early landscape by Vincent Van Gogh, one of the art world's most sought-after painters, sold for 7.07 million euros ($8.27 million) at an auction in Paris on Monday.

Painted in 1882, "Fishing Net Menders in the Dunes" depicts peasant women working on the land under a cloudy sky, inspired by the countryside around The Hague, where Van Gogh passed a short but formative period.

The painting, the first Van Gogh to be auctioned in France for more than 20 years, had been valued at 3 million to 5 million euros. It was purchased by a buyer based in North America, auction house Artcurial said.

On average only two or three works by the Dutch impressionist appear on the international market each year, the auction house said.

While hardly cheap, the price comes nowhere near the record $450.3 million paid last November for "Salvator Mundi," Leonardo da Vinci's 15th century portrait of Christ, which is due to go on display in a new branch of the Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi.

source: news.abs-cbn.com