On Friday night, a serious incident took place at the MPV Gallery in Oisterwijk, located in the southern Dutch province of Noord-Brabant, where two unidentified perpetrators used explosives to break into the premises and steal several artworks on display.
See also: Andy Warhol: The Pope of Pop
Their target was Andy Warhol's Reigning Queens series, a set of screen prints from 1985 depicting the four reigning monarchs of the time: Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, and Queen Ntombi Twala of Swaziland (now Eswatini). Warhol’s series includes sixteen screen prints, each featuring four portraits of the queens in varying colours, from which Warhol created additional prints. The four portraits at the MPV Gallery are all signed by Warhol and are rarely numbered alike. They were due to be offered for sale at the PAN Amsterdam art fair from November 24 to December 1.
See also: A New Record for Warhol and the Queen
As seen in the CCTV footage, the perpetrators initially intended to steal all four portraits, but their car was too small to carry them all. They ultimately took only those of Elizabeth and Margrethe, leaving behind Beatrix and Ntombi. "They threw two of the paintings onto the street and tore the frames off the other two," gallery owner Mark Peet Visser told the Netherlands Broadcasting Organisation (NOS). This rough handling caused what he described as "irreparable damage" to the artworks, which, along with their unique numbering, may complicate any attempts to resell them.
