Police after the theft of the Van Gogh at the Singer Museum in Laren, March 2020
This morning a 58-year-old man was arrested in Baarn on suspicion of stealing paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Frans Hals.
The Van Gogh was stolen from the Singer museum in Laren on the night of March 30, 2020. It concerns the painting Spring garden, the pastor garden in Nuenen in the spring from 1884. The canvas by Frans Hals (The two laughing boys) was stolen almost five months later, on 26 August, from the Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden museum in Leerdam.
The paintings are not finished yet. The detainee has been arrested at his home and is suspected of being the thief.
The Van Gogh, measuring 57 by 25 centimeters, was on loan to Singer Laren. It is owned by the Groninger Museum.
At the time, the perpetrator arrived at the museum with a scooter and smashed two glass doors with a sledgehammer.
Images that were released show how the thief walks outside with the painting:
Frans Hals’s canvas was stolen by forcing a back door of the museum. The two laughing boys was stolen twice before, in 1988 and in 2011.
