Three and a half years after a valuable painting by Vincent van Gogh was stolen, the work of art has resurfaced in the Netherlands. Detective Arthur Brand, known as the “Indiana Jones of the art world,” rescued the oil painting “The Parish Garden of Nuenen in Spring” in collaboration with government investigators, Dutch police said Tuesday.
“It is guaranteed to be the real picture, there is no doubt about that,” a police spokesman told the AFP news agency.
It was “one of the greatest moments of my life,” the detective told AFP. In a video he released, Brand can be seen unpacking the artwork wrapped in bubble wrap and a pillowcase and his breath taken away when he sees what it is. It remained unclear who gave him the Ikea bag with the work of art.
Ikea Netherlands writes on Instagram: “We always knew it was art.” Of course, this means the bag.
The work comes from a relatively early phase of Van Gogh’s career, before the artist began his signature post-Impressionist paintings such as the Sunflowers and his vivid self-portraits.
The thief of the picture was identified using DNA evidence. In September 2021, the then 59-year-old was sentenced to eight years in prison. But Van Gogh’s work remained missing. The court was convinced that the man had also stolen a picture by the Dutch Baroque painter Frans Hals in a separate crime.