'Amateurish' thieves steal 2 Warhol prints, damage 2 more in botched heist at Dutch gallery

Thieves person blown unfastened nan doorway of an creation assemblage successful nan confederate Netherlands and stolen 2 useful from a celebrated bid of surface prints by American popular creator Andy Warhol

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Thieves blew unfastened nan doorway of an creation assemblage successful nan confederate Netherlands and stole 2 useful from a celebrated bid of surface prints by American popular creator Andy Warhol and near 2 much severely damaged successful nan thoroughfare arsenic they fled nan segment of nan botched heist, nan assemblage proprietor said Friday.

Mark Peet Visser said nan thieves attempted to bargain each 4 useful from a 1985 Warhol bid called “Reigning Queens,” which features portraits of nan then-queens of nan United Kingdom, nan Netherlands, Denmark and Swaziland, a mini landlocked kingdom successful confederate Africa which is now called Eswatini.

In a telephone interview, Visser said nan heist early Friday astatine MPV Gallery successful nan municipality of Oisterwijk was captured connected information cameras, and called it “amateurish.”

“The explosive onslaught was truthful convulsive that my full building was destroyed” and adjacent stores were besides damaged, he said. "So they did that portion of it well, excessively good actually. And past they ran to nan car pinch nan artworks and it turns retired that they won't fresh successful nan car. ... At that infinitesimal nan useful are ripped retired of nan frames and you besides cognize that they are damaged beyond repair, because it is intolerable to get them retired undamaged.”

Visser declined to put a worth connected nan 4 signed and numbered works, which he had planned to connection for waste arsenic a group astatine an creation adjacent successful Amsterdam later this month.

The thieves sewage distant pinch portraits of Elizabeth II of nan United Kingdom and Margrethe II of Denmark. The prints of Queen Beatrix of nan Netherlands and Ntombi Tfwala, who is now known arsenic nan queen mother of Eswatini, were near connected nan thoroughfare arsenic nan thieves fled, Visser said.

Police appealed for witnesses arsenic forensic experts examined nan severely damaged assemblage connected Friday.