AMSTERDAM — Thieves made off with paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Monet and other prominent modern artists from Rotterdam's Kunsthal museum early on Tuesday in a brazen and meticulously planned operation. The seven stolen works, which also include a Gauguin, a Lucian Freud and a Meyer de Haan, are thought to be worth tens of millions of dollars. Dutch police investigating the overnight heist have yet to put a price on the paintings, and few details have emerged about how they were removed from the museum designed by Rem Koolhaas. But the theft is one of the art world's most dramatic in recent years, and one of the biggest ever in the Netherlands. Roland Ekkers, a spokesman for Rotterdam police, said they received a call alerting them to the theft at around 3 A.M. local time on Tuesday. The works stolen were Picasso's “Tête d'Arlequin”, Matisse's “La Liseuse en Blanc et Jaune”, Monet's “Waterloo Bridge, London” and “Charing Cross Bridge, London”, Gauguin's “Femme devant une fenêtre ouverte”, De Haan's “Autoportrait” and Freud's “Woman with Eyes Closed”. Jop Ubbens, chairman of Christie's in Amsterdam, told Reuters the paintings would be worth “more than several million euros,” with the Picasso the best known of the stolen works. “It's all about name and fame. So the Picasso is the best known. The least well-known is Meyer de Haan, which looks like a Gauguin, so maybe it was a mistake,” he added. Ubbens said the art heist was one of the biggest in the country, but “not as big as The Scream”, referring to the work by Edvard Munch, a version of which was stolen from a museum in Oslo in 2004 but later recovered. — Reuters
