Thieves have stolen paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and other famous modern artists from a museum in Rotterdam, Dutch police say.
Works by Paul Gauguin, Lucian Freud and Meyer de Haan, were also among the seven paintings stolen from the Kunsthal museum overnight, police said on Tuesday.
Neither the police nor the museum were immediately able to put a value on the haul, but the theft is one of the art world’s most dramatic in recent years and will likely be worth millions.
The list of paintings on the Dutch police website were:
• Picasso, Tete d’Arlequin
• Matisse, La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune
• Monet, Waterloo Bridge, London
• Monet, Charing Cross Bridge, London
• Gauguin, Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte, Dite la Fiancé
• De Haan, Autoportrait (circa 1889-91)
• Freud, Woman with Eyes Closed (2002)
Kunsthal, designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, does not have its own collection and exhibits different types of art, including photos, sculptures, design and fashion.
It opened a new exhibition a few days ago to celebrate its 20th anniversary, including paintings by Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondriaan, Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Freud, and others showing examples of impressionism, expressionism and other modern art movements.
More than 150 paintings in the exhibition came from the privately owned Triton Foundation collection, and many of the works were worth €1m or more, Kunsthal’s former executive Wim van Krimpen told Dutch public radio station Radio 1
