The court of Noord-Holland has Henk B. Tuesday convicted up to four years in prison for the failed robbery of the painting The Voorzaan and the Westerhem by Monet from the Zaans Museum. The verdict is equal to the sentence. “It is a particularly brutal theft in broad daylight.”
On August 15 last year, B. ran out of the Zaans Museum with the painting, which the museum had bought in 2015 for 1.16 million euros. According to the Public Prosecution Service, the perpetrator lost his hat with a wig on the way, after which one of the bystanders took the painting from him.
A second suspect who was standing by with a scooter then fired at a bystander, the court writes. No one was injured and the painting was left on the pavement, but it was damaged. “The suspect only had an eye for his own financial gain,” said the public prosecutor in the sentence.
Henk B. reported to the police more than a month after the art theft. In court, he said other criminals forced him to commit the robbery, wrote NH News in April. They would have sent him a photo of his child, after which he freaked out. That cannot be verified “and does not affect the seriousness of the proven fact”, the court responded on Tuesday. The fact that B. was also previously convicted of theft from the Van Gogh Museum did play a role in the verdict.
Emotional value
“I am very happy that the suspect has been convicted,” says Marieke Verweij, director of the Zaans Museum. “This feels like a closed chapter.”
The entire museum is “terribly shocked” by the theft, says Verweij. “It is our masterpiece, and it has great emotional value. The fact that Monet came to the Zaan region for four months and painted 25 works there, for the first time in his life in the open air, is very special in art history.”
The Voorzaan and the Westerhem will be on display again in the Zaans Museum at the beginning of June, Verweij announced.