Everyone loves a good heist story, which is maybe why they’re turning The Italian Job into a series after all these years (HERE).

Heists don’t come much bigger than the Van Gogh museum raid, the Amsterdam establishment hit back in 2002.

Amongst the stolen items were two Van Gogh paintings, but now police have recovered the work from some Naples-based Mafia.

Yeah, it does sound like something out of the movies. First let’s deal with how the art came to be stolen, with this from the BBC:

The theft of the two works, described as priceless, led to criticism of security at the world’s major art museums.

The thieves broke into the museum through the roof during the night of 6-7 December 2002 and used sledgehammers to break a first-floor window.

They took the paintings off the walls of the main exhibition hall. Experts were baffled at the time of the theft because guards had been on patrol and infra-red security systems were in place.

Neither work was insured at the time, and both were on loan to the Van Gogh museum from the Dutch government. Two Dutch citizens were jailed for theft but always maintained their innocence.

No insurance? Come now, you really need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

After what police described as a “massive, continuing investigation” by Italian prosecutors and organised crime officials, the work was finally found over in Italy.

Painting A – Seascape at Scheveningen

[It] was one of only two seascapes he painted while he lived in the Netherlands.

It shows a foaming, stormy sea and thundery sky, and was painted in 1882 while he was staying in The Hague.

Painting B – Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church at Nuenen

[It] was painted for Van Gogh’s mother, but also partly for his father, who had become a pastor at the church in 1882. When his father died in 1884, Van Gogh added churchgoers including a few women wearing shawls used for mourning.

Van Gogh, helping street cred since the 19th century.

[source:bbc]