Thieves in Netherlands take off with Dali painting
Last Updated: Saturday, May 2, 2009 | 11:38 AM ET
CBC News
Dutch officials say masked gunmen have stolen two highly prized paintings, including one by Salvador Dali.
Police say three or four men arrived at the Scheringa Museum for Realist Art in Spanbroek around noon local time on Friday and threatened a guard with a gun. They then grabbed two paintings.
"They put the paintings in a [small, black] car and drove off," said police spokesman Menno Hartenberg.
"It was all over in two minutes."
The thieves took Adolescence, a 1941 work by Dali and La Musicienne, an oil painting from 1929 by Polish-born art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka, the museum said in a statement.
"We deeply regret the theft and hope the works are traced soon," said a statement from the museum, located 50 kilometres north of Amsterdam.
The museum would not release the value of the paintings.
The Dali piece depicts a landscape in which a woman's face can be discerned: her eyes are part of two hills in the background.
The de Lempicka shows a woman in a bright blue dress playing a mandolin-like instrument.
The museum exhibits the collection of Dutch banker Dirk Scheringa and his wife.
