:quality(80)/cdn-kiosk-api.telegraaf.nl/7f2cc3b4-840c-11ea-8241-02d1dbdc35d1.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1)
It is a quarter past three in the night from Sunday to Monday 30 March when a motorcyclist drives in front of the museum, turns at the junction and extinguishes his headlamp. With a large sledgehammer hammer, the heavily built offender smashes the glass entrance door. In the museum he also manages to break open the door that gives access to the wing with works of art after a large number of strokes and to step through a hole in the door.
Pending the investigation, the police do not want to show how the perpetrator removes the painting with an estimated value of one to three million euros from the wall, according to the explanation during the Investigation Requested program on Tuesday.
It is clear that the man is leaving the museum in a great hurry with the sledgehammer’s hammer and the world-famous work of art literally clamped under his right arm.
Witness
The police say they do not know whether the perpetrator received help from others or acted alone. Hope is still vested in witnesses. Two specific witnesses are still being sought. A driver of a white van that drove through the Naarderstraat in Laren just before the break-in. And a cyclist who rides towards the center around the same time. The police say about the cyclist: “That could well be a good witness.”
The research team has now also viewed the camera images from mid-January to the end of March to see if someone is pre-investigating and whether someone is behaving suspiciously. “Did anyone happen to make photos or videos of it, also in the exhibition space, please report,” said a police spokesman.
“Shocked, angry and sad”
The break-in of the work Lentetuin, the vicarage garden in Nuenen in the spring (1884) by Vincent van Gogh cuts deeply into the director of Singer Laren. The Van Gogh was on loan from the Groninger Museum and is part of the exhibition Mirror of the Soul. Toorop to Mondrian.
“We are deeply shocked, angry and sad. A beautiful and moving painting by one of our greatest artists has been withdrawn from the community ”, the museum director Jan Rudolph de Lorm said at the time.
According to managing director Evert van Os, the security of Singer Laren was “according to protocol” and “coordinated with the insurance experts”
–
Every afternoon the most important corona updates and the latest news in your inbox.
Invalid email address. Please enter again.
You can unsubscribe with 1 click
—–
