The small town of Brabant, in the south of the Netherlands, was shaken by a violent explosion around 3 a.m. on the night of Thursday October 31 to Friday November 1. The entrance door to the MPV Gallery in Oisterwijk was blown out by explosives which shattered the windows of several other buildings. The thieves fled by car with two screen-printed portraits from the series Reigning Queens.
Made two years before Andy Warhol’s death, the two stolen screen prints depict Queen Elizabeth II of England and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.
They were treated roughly by the thieves during their flight. After tearing the works off the wall, they had to cut them out of the frame to fit them into their car, reports by Volkskrant. The works were badly damaged and the damage is irreparable, explains Mark Peet Visser, the gallery’s owner.
Two pieces from the same series were found near the gallery, this time with their frames. The thieves probably abandoned them because they did not fit into their vehicle, found by the police in a residential area of Oisterwijk. The two screen prints, also damaged, represent Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Queen Ntombi Tfawala of Eswatini.
We do not know the exact value of the stolen works. There are many reproductions of the Reigning Queens series around the world and only a few hand-signed by the artist. These would have a little more value because of the celebrity of the queens, explains the historian Willem Baars for OUR. But according to gallery owner Mark Peet Visser, the series would have great value, being made up of numbered prints.
The four screenprints are part of the series Reigning Queenscreated by the artist two years before his death in 1985. They were designed from photographs, transformed by the range of colors and aesthetics of Andy Warhol. A special edition of 30 screen prints, the Royale edition, was made with diamond dust or crushed glass applied to the still wet portrait. In 2021, four numbered screen prints of Queen Beatrix were sold for 217,000 euros by the auction house Venduehuis to a foreign collector.
The works were to be presented at the PAN Amsterdam fair between November 24 and December 1. The sale was announced in a press release by the gallery.
It will be very difficult for thieves to resell the works, “this can only be done on the black market”reports the RTBF. In addition to the damage inflicted, the screen prints being numbered, they will be easily recognizable.
Police have appealed for witnesses for more information.
