Art sleuth Arthur Brand made headlines around the world last month when he recovered a stolen Van Gogh painting stuffed in an Ikea bag, and he believes that the widely publicised success is leading to more discoveries.
Thieves made off with the six paintings from Medemblik’s town hall in the northern Netherlands last month.
While the monetary value of the haul is not huge – around €100,000 – the paintings are considered of great historical significance, including the earliest known portrait of Radbod, king of the Frisians from 680AD.
Brand was sitting at home on Friday night watching football when the doorbell rang and a man in a van asked him for help to unload some merchandise.
“I asked him, ‘What are we going to unload?’. He said with a smile, ‘Well, the paintings of Medemblik’,” Brand recounted.
After the initial burglary in September, Brand had been widely quoted in the Dutch press as saying the thieves should have stolen six bikes, as they would have been easier to resell.
Those comments, plus the publicity surrounding the Van Gogh recovery, probably led the thieves to simply hand the paintings back, explained Brand.
“In some cases, they burn them, just to get rid of the evidence because they find out they cannot sell them,” he told AFP.
“So I’m very thankful that they decided to do the right thing. Stealing is wrong, but if you return it, at least you do something right,” he added.
Now, Brand is hoping that the momentum from the Van Gogh theft will lead to the recovery of another prized painting – a masterpiece by Frans Hals called “Two Laughing Boys”.
He also has his eye on recovering work from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, where paintings worth an estimated US$500 million from the likes of Vermeer, Manet, and Rembrandt were stolen in 1990.
The authorities in Medemblik had offered a reward of €10,000 for the safe return of the paintings but this has gone unclaimed.
Brand said he would not be collecting the cash himself.
“I told them to give me a good book voucher,” he quipped.