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A Van Gogh Painting Was Stolen in a Heist After a Museum in the Netherlands Temporarily Closed

Photo credit: DEA PICTURE LIBRARY - Getty Images
Photo credit: DEA PICTURE LIBRARY - Getty Images

From Cosmopolitan

  • Last night, a group of burglars stole a Vincent Van Gogh painting from a museum in the Netherlands.

  • The Singer Laren museum was closed because of coronavirus concerns, and the director is livid about the break-in.


If you want to read a story about people rising to the occasion during these tough times, this isn't it. Unfortunately, some people spent their time last night orchestrating a museum raid in the Netherlands.

After the country's Singer Laren museum closed amid coronavirus concerns, a group of cruel and opportunistic thieves shattered the museum's glass front door around 3:15 a.m. and made off with a Vincent Van Gogh painting titled The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring (1884). The stolen painting has a limited digital footprint, but you can view it here.

“I am extremely pissed off that this happened,” said the museum's director, Jan Rudolph de Lorm, at a press conference this morning. “This is a huge blow. This is extremely difficult, especially in these times.”

His anger is understandable. The thieves breaking the glass door triggered an alarm, alerting police, but the authorities weren't able to get there in time to catch the intruders. According to AP News, what makes this even worse is that the painting doesn't even belong to the Singer Laren museum—it was on loan from the Groninger Museum, another institution in the Netherlands. It was reportedly the only Van Gogh painting in the Groninger's collection.

Police are currently investigating. It's unclear whether or not anything else was stolen from Singer Laren's 3,000-piece collection, but can we just...not steal from museums while they're closed right now? Read the room, Ocean's 8 wannabes: This is not the time!!

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