
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 15, 1991                   TAG: 9104150156
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS                                LENGTH: Medium

THIEVES ABANDON VAN GOGHS

In one of the largest but briefest art thefts on record, gunmen took 20 major paintings from the Vincent Van Gogh National Museum here before dawn Sunday but inexplicably abandoned them in their getaway car 35 minutes later at a nearby railroad station.

The paintings, all by the Dutch genius who died a suicide in France 101 years ago, had been carefully selected from the walls of the building devoted to his work in Amsterdam's museum complex.

The booty included one of his earliest finished paintings, the final version of "The Potato Eaters" completed in his hometown, Nuenen, in 1885, and one of his last, the nightmarish "Wheatfield With Crows" completed in Auvers-sur-Oise in July 1890, the month of his suicide.

Ronald de Leeuw, the director of the museum, said that three of the recovered paintings had been severely torn when they were stuffed into the garment bags the thieves used to carry the works away.

Experts were examining the canvases to see about repairs, but authorities at the museum said that works with more serious damage had been successfully restored in the past.

The thieves appeared in the museum about 3 a.m. local time, apparently having concealed themselves when it closed on Saturday at 5 p.m.

Brandishing pistols and wearing ski masks, they forced the guards to turn off the infrared-sensing alarm system, which can detect movement in a room, as well as other protective systems.

The guards said the two men spoke in American-accented English.

The guards said the thieves spent 45 minutes selecting the paintings they took. The museum is in a modern four-story building opened in 1973.

The museum, formed around the collection of Vincent's brother Theo, has about 200 paintings, 500 drawings and 600 letters by van Gogh.

The thieves escaped with two expandable garment bags in a Volkswagen Passat. One minute afterward, at 4:48 a.m., the guards gave the alarm to the police.

The car, with the paintings still in the garment bags in the back, was found at 5:23 a.m. at the Amstel train station.

by CNB