And while the whole earth is fixed to face this global pandemic, there is always somebody who wants to take advantage of this situation and speculate on it. The last example is Vincent Van Gogh's work that was stolen in the night between Sunday and Monday, in the halls of the Singer Museum, in Laren, in the Gooi region of northern Holland.
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The museum that was closed due to the Coronavirus emergency until 1 June 2020, guarded the works belonging to the collection of the American artist William Henry Singer - rich heir of a family of industrialists - and his wife Anna. But this Van Gogh's work was on loan from the Groningen Museum for a temporary exhibition: "Mirror of the Soul", organized in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and set up with works of great value, dedicated to Dutch art between the 19th and 20th centuries likes Jan Toorop, Johan Thorn Prikker, Matthijs Maris, Willem Witsen, Piet Mondriaan and, indeed, Vincent van Gogh.
The stolen work is titled "Spring Garden" (1884) in which a beautiful spring view of the Nuenen rectory garden is depicted, a village where Van Gogh retired from 1883 to 1885, living with his family, after being disappointed by the end of the tormented relationship with Christine Clasina Maria Hoornik, called Sien. Ironically, another Van Gogh painting depicted the church of Nuenen and made between 1884 and 1885, was stolen in 2002 from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, along with Scheveningen Beach before a storm. The work was found in Italy, in Castellammare di Stabia, in 2016 and in March 2017 it returned to its original location in the Netherlands.
Singer Museum director Jan Rudolph de Lorm said that he was "angry, shocked and sad" about the theft of Van Gogh's painting, which the police are investigating: "This theft represents a terrible event for all of us. Art must give comfort, especially in this difficult moment." The director of the Groninger Museum Andreas Blühm has declared: "It is the theft of a work that belongs to all of us". According to the first reconstructions, thieves entered the museum around 3.15 am, forcing the glass entrance door. The burglar alarm went off but the perpetrators of the coup had already disappeared when the police arrived. The value of the work has not been revealed. Fortunately, thieves did not take away other paintings and the two museum institutions will continue to collaborate.