NEWS

Stolen Van Gogh paintings found 14 years later

Jane Onyanga-Omara
USA TODAY

Two paintings by Dutch master Van Gogh that were stolen from a museum in Amsterdam almost 14 years ago have been recovered by Italian Anti-Mafia police.

Axel Ruger, director of the Van Gogh Museum, poses next to 'Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen' (left) and 'The Beach At Scheveningen During A Storm'  by Vincent van Gogh. The two paintings stolen in Amsterdam 14 years ago were recently recovered by organised crime investigators in Italy.

The artworks — Seascape at Scheveningen and Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen  — date from the late 19th Century and were taken from the Van Gogh Museum in Dec. 2002.

Police in Naples said the "priceless" paintings were found in a farmhouse during a raid targeting a Naples-based crime syndicate that was suspected of cocaine trafficking. They said the artworks were hidden with other property worth “tens of millions of euros."

Axel Rüger, the director of the Van Gogh Museum, thanked the organizations that helped find the masterpieces, which were shown to reporters at a news conference in Naples on Friday.

“After all those years you no longer dare to count on a possible return. The paintings have been found! That I would be able to ever pronounce these words is something I had no longer dared to hope for,” he said in a statement.

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The theft was one of the FBI's top 10 art crimes. Two men were convicted of stealing the paintings in 2004 after their DNA was found at the scene, but the artworks remained missing.

The museum said the paintings, whose frames were removed, appeared to be “in fairly good condition” but showed signs of some damage.

"It is unknown where the works were kept after the theft in 2002, but it can be assumed that the paintings were not preserved under suitable conditions," a statement by the museum said.

"The art historical value of the paintings for the collection is huge," it added.

Rüger said it wasn’t yet clear when the paintings would be returned to Amsterdam.