Two works of art by American artist Andy Warhol were stolen in an overnight break-in at a gallery in the Netherlands.
The incident happened at the MPV Gallery in the province of North Brabant.
The thieves initially took four silk paintings from Warhol’s Reigning Queens series but abandoned two nearby, the gallery owner told Dutch broadcaster NOS.
The works taken are from the late Queen Elizabeth II and from Margrethe II, who was Queen of Denmark until she abdicated earlier this year.
Local police are investigating and said it appears there was an explosion of some kind and caused a lot of damage to the gallery and surrounding buildings. The thieves are said to have fled in a car.
According to NOS, two other paintings in the series depicting Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Queen Ntombi Tfwala of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, were left behind because they did not fit the vehicle.
These four artworks are being kept at the gallery ahead of the PAN Amsterdam art fair later this month, where they will be sold as a set.
They are part of a series of 16 silkscreens of four queens that Warhol, considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, created in 1985 – two years before his death.
Two of the works depicting Queen Elizabeth II sold for more than £500,000 each at Sotheby’s auction house in 2022.
