A painting by
Vincent van Gogh,
which had been stolen and then returned to a Dutch detective, was exposed to the media for the first time since its recovery on Wednesday, with the
damage caused by the theft still visible.
This is the work
The Nuenen Presbytery Garden in Spring
, a painting dating from
1884
, whose value is estimated between 3.2 and 6.4 million dollars, and which was presented in a museum in Rotterdam.
The painting still has "a serious damage" at the bottom, according to Marjan de Visser, the work's restorer.
"
The damage goes through all the layers of the work
: the varnish, the paint and the base layer, which is white," declared De Visser.
According to his public statements, the deterioration is probably due to
"the painting colliding with a very hard surface."
Zoom.
The recovered work, in an exhibition for the press.
Photo: EFE
The restorer explained that she conducted research on the materials used, previous restorations and the way it was originally conceived.
De Visser cleaned the
dirt
that covered the painting and began to remove some of the varnish.
Before the sunflowers
The Nuenen Presbytery Garden in Spring
is the first oil painting that Vincent Van Gogh made while
he was still living with his parents
in that city.
There he created his first masterpiece:
The Potato Eaters.
De Visser said, regarding the work, that "this is how the young Van Gogh painted before the development of his artistic career at the
Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp
, before being recognized worldwide for his impressionist paintings, his sunflowers and his self-portraits. ".
The exhibition for the general public will open on
March 29
at the
Groningen Museum
in the north of the Netherlands.
With the painting in hand
The work was stolen in an episode in the middle of the night in March
2020
, during isolation in the coronavirus
pandemic
, at the
Singer Laren Museum
, near Amsterdam, a space to which it had been loaned by the one in Groningen.
Police images released shortly after the robbery showed a
criminal breaking the glass door of the museum before fleeing with the painting in hand.
The work was considered lost for 3 years but reappeared in a way that shocked the entire world: a man, whose identity was not revealed for his own safety, handed it into the hands of
Arthur Brand, known as "the Indiana Jones of the world." of art"
for having found and recovered several missing works.
For unknown reasons, the man who had the work in his possession met with Brand and returned the painting to him in an operation that was carried out "with absolute discretion."
This person would not be responsible for the theft, but only an intermediary who acted to facilitate the delivery.
The employees of the Groninger Museum stressed that they were "very happy and relieved that the work is back," according to Andreas Blühm, director of the gallery, who highlighted that Brand, "played a key role in this case and the museum values him highly." ".
Self-portrait.
Two employees place a Van Gogh self-portrait from 1887 in London's Courtauld Gallery.
Photo: EFE
Brand, who owes the "honorary title" of "Indiana Jones of art" to a career in which he has recovered works by
Dalí and Picasso
among others, had to gain the trust of his unexpected interlocutor.
"We knew that this person wanted to return the cloth and I worked in coordination with the police. In the end, he came to my office and gave it to me," he explained.
The detective said he handed over
the nearly 140-year-old painting "in a pillow and an Ikea bag."
In April 2021, police arrested a man identified as
Nils M
in the local press.
He was convicted and sentenced to
8 years in prison
for also stealing, on another occasion, a masterpiece by
Frans Hals called
Two Smiling Children.
J.S.