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A stolen Vincent van Gogh painting, ‘The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring’, has been recovered after a lengthy three-and-a-half-year pursuit to find the precious artwork.

Dedicated Dutch art detective Arthur Brand played a pivotal role in the painting’s return and has revealed, in a bizarre turn of events, that the 139-year-old masterpiece was handed to him by an anonymous man who arrived at his front door. The mystery man had the artwork carefully concealed in a pillow and an Ikea bag, which he gave to Brand before promptly leaving.

Apparently, through collaboration with Dutch police, Brand could confirm that the man who delivered the painting was not connected to the original theft. No arrests were made, as apparently the anonymous fellow was just the ‘delivery guy’.

The theft of ‘The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring’ occurred in March 2020 when a thief, armed with a sledgehammer, broke into the Singer museum in the Dutch town of Laren, just southeast of Amsterdam. The daring theft took place at the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown, and the burglar clearly took advantage of everyone being distracted by the ‘vid.

The stolen painting had been on loan from a museum in Groningen, a city in the northeastern part of the Netherlands, and the thief, Nils M., a French-born criminal living in Holland, was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2021. However, by then, the painting, valued at several million euros, had ‘vanished’, suspected to be in the hands of underground art dealers.

Far from being jacked by law-breaking art fanatics, it’s subsequently been discovered that a crime group had acquired the Van Gogh painting with intentions of using it as a bargaining chip for shorter jail sentences. That’s one helluva bribe.

Detective Brand explained that, due to the monumental value (both monetarily and culturally) of the piece, the painting bounced around various criminal groups in the underworld, considered ‘too hot’ to stay in one gang’s possession for too long.

 

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Brand’s relief and excitement in the clip above is palpable; as early as June 2020, Brand received “proof of life” footage of the painting but it’s taken almost four years to get the artwork back safely.

The most pivotal moment in the search came when a man in Amsterdam approached Brand and offered to return the artwork in exchange for complete confidentiality. It seems the painting really did become ‘too hot to handle’ and, weighing up his options, the gentleman in possession of the piece decided it wasn’t worth the stress.

The recovered painting was protected by a pillow, which was splattered with bits of blood, indicating that the person who retrieved it had cut a finger during the process.

The Dutch police arts crime unit has confirmed that the recovered painting is indeed the one and only ‘The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring’, and is currently in the hands of the Van Gogh museum, where experts are working on restoring it.

The museum director says he is reluctant to lend the artwork out again in the future, and we don’t blame him.

Although I’m not gonna lie, I would watch the shit out of this art heist/detective story if they wanted to sell it to Netflix.

[source:bbc]