Far-Right militia in Ukraine accused of selling hoard of 17th century Dutch paintings stolen from museum a decade ago
Mark Duell, Daily Mail (UK), Dec 8 2015
A far-right militia in Ukraine was last night accused of trying to sell a hoard of 17th century Dutch paintings stolen from a museum more than a decade ago. The Westfries Museum in Hoorn has revealed claims that the 24 paintings taken in a burglary in Jan 2005 along with 70 pieces of silverware are now being offered for sale in Ukraine. The museum also told the militia that the works are nowhere near as valuable as they may think, despite a €5m ‘finder’s fee’ having previously been sought for the art. Two representatives claiming to represent a militia of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) contacted the Dutch Embassy in Kiev in July claiming to have the full collection of stolen paintings. According to the museum, which is aiming to deter potential buyers, the duo showed a photograph of one of the paintings alongside a current Ukrainian newspaper to back up their claim. Hoorn municipality then used a Dutch expert in stolen art to contact the group and offer compensation if the art were returned. At that point, the intermediaries said they wanted €5m. But the expert said that in their current condition all the paintings, including works by Jan Linsen and Jan van Goyen, would be worth a combined total of no more than €500k. The paintings, valued at €10m when they went missing in 2005, include landscapes, naval scenes, and still lifes, almost all of them dating from the 17th century. A museum spokesman alleged that the case involves ‘Ukrainian art criminals who have contacts on the highest political levels’ in the country. And Ad Geerdink, director of the Westfries Museum, said:
There are very strong signs that the paintings are now being offered to other parties or have even been sold. Given the paintings’ fragile condition, it is already one minute to midnight, or even one past midnight.
Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders told broadcaster NOS:
We’ve brought this up at the highest level with the Ukrainians. I believe that they are taking it very seriously. We are going to try to ensure it returns to the Westfries Museum.
The thieves who carried out the heist hid in the museum before closing time on a winter’s evening and disabled the museum’s alarm system before making off with the artworks. The discovery of the paintings could add to the diplomatic complexities surrounding a collection of priceless gold artefacts from Crimea that were on loan to an Amsterdam museum when Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine last year. The Kiev government and several museums in Crimea have since been locked in legal disputes in Dutch courts over who owns the ancient objects. But there is no suggestion that their fate is linked to that of the Westfries paintings.
Niqnaq 