Art Heist In Rotterdam: Monet, Gauguin, Picasso, Freud
Seven highly valuable paintings by artists like Matisse and Picasso were stolen last night from the Kunsthal Rotterdam in The Netherlands in what the museum director called "a nightmare."
The stolen works – by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, Meyer de Haan, Lucian Freud, and two by Claude Monet – were part of an exhibition called Avant-Gardes, a selection of 150 works from the Triton Foundation Collection. The collection is a private one, assembled by wealthy Dutch entrepreneur Willem Cordia and his wife, Marijke.
In a press conference this afternoon, Director Emily Ansenk of Kunsthal Rotterdam said she was “shocked” by the theft, which would have been “a nightmare for any museum director.” The museum refused to name the value of the collected works, but estimates have been made from 10 million to several tens of millions of dollars.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/1016/Dutch-art-heist-a-nightmare-for-any-museum-director-video
