Dutch Police Release Video of Van Gogh Painting Theft

Police in the Netherlands have released security camera video showing a thief who stole a prized Vincent van Gogh painting from a Dutch museum late last month.The video of the March 30 theft shows how the perpetrator used a sledgehammer to smash his way through reinforced glass doors at the Singer Laren Museum in Laren, Netherlands, east of Amsterdam.Police hope that publicizing the images will help them track down the thief who stole “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884” while the museum was shut down due to coronavirus containment measures.Police have made no arrests in connection with the theft of the painting, which was on loan from the Groninger Museum when it was stolen, and it remains missing.The 25-by-57-centimeter oil-on-paper painting shows a person standing in a garden surrounded by trees with a church tower in the background.It dates to a time when Van Gogh had moved back to his family in a rural area of the Netherlands and painted the life he saw there, including his famous work “The Potato Eaters”, in mostly somber tones.The exact value of the missing painting is uncertain, but recent Van Gogh paintings have gone for tens of millions of dollars when sold at auction. 
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