Andy Warhol ‘Reigning Queens’ prints stolen in robbery involving bomb

About two weeks after the art gallery advertised the “unique” display of Andy Warhol‘s ‘complete series’ ‘Reigning Queens’, the Dutch MPV Gallery was robbed in an art heist in which thieves made off with two of the pop artist’s 1985 prints and destroyed the rest of the four-piece set.

Gallery owner Mark Peet Visser attached the precious caper in one interview with the Associated Press on Friday, November 1, saying that burglars bombed the gallery in the early hours that day in an attack “so violent that my entire building was destroyed” in an attempt to steal all four queen prints.

Citing security camera footage of the theft, Visser told the AP that the break-in was “amateurish,” noting that with the four queens in tow, they “ran to the car with the artwork and it turns out they weren’t in the car to fit. ”

He said the thieves “torn” the prints from the frames, leaving them “irreparably damaged as it is impossible to get them out undamaged.”

According to the AP, the police have called on witnesses to come forward in the case.

Had a fisherman planned to sell the four screen prints — which Warhol signed and numbered in pencil — together at the PAN Amsterdam 2024 art fair later in November, according to the ad, which noted that interested buyers could offer purchases on “request.”

He declined to release the total value of the prints to the AP, which according to his ad depicted the world’s four reigning queens at the time: Elizabeth II of Great Britain, Beatrix of the Netherlands, Margrethe II of Denmark and Ntombi Twala of Swaziland . .

Want to stay up to date with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

According to the advertisement, each of the queens was informed that Warhol planned to reimagine their likenesses in bold colors and shapes. George Mulder, an Amsterdam gallery owner who commissioned the works in 1983, claimed according to the advertisement that the reigning royal family had all reacted differently to the project: Elizabeth was positive about the representation of her likeness, Margrethe complained about the King of Pop The bad influence of art on youth, Beatrix was enthusiastic and Ntombi Twala said she had never heard of the artist.

Warhol based his screen prints on existing photographs of the queens, creating four portraits of each for a total of sixteen works, which, according to the advertisement, constituted his largest screen print portfolio.

The queens – most sold individually – were soon scattered around the world, with Visser claiming in the release: “It is unknown how many Reigning Queens series have been broken up and how many remain intact.”

The reunion of the four queens, which will be exhibited and sold together at the art fair later this month, was one that is “only sporadically offered to the art market,” the gallery owner said in the release, adding: “This makes the Reigning Queens series is one of the most sought-after series for art collectors, which consistently fetch record amounts.”

On Friday morning, the thieves finally fled with Queens Elizabeth and Margrethe. Because he could not get the other royals into the car, the gallery owner told the AP that Beatrix and Ntombi Tfwala had been thrown out onto the street.