Danish police have recovered a self-portrait of 17th-century Dutch master Rembrandt stolen in a daring raid on Sweden’s National Museum nearly five years ago, and arrested four men, officials said on Friday.
The two Iraqis, a Gambian and a Swede were caught in a police sting while showing the $40 million painting to a potential buyer at a Copenhagen hotel late on Thursday, Danish police said.
“We have recovered the painting during a planned action,” police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch told Reuters, adding that the four men would be held in custody for 13 days pending further investigation.
“We will have to continue the investigation to see if there are more people involved,” he said, adding that the prospective buyer was not a suspect. If found guilty, the men could face up to six years in prison, he said.
The news was well received in Sweden. When asked how she felt on hearing of the recovery, Gorel Cavalli-Bjorkman, head of research at Sweden’s National Museum and a Rembrandt expert, told Reuters: “I jumped with joy!”
“I had expected it would be recovered at some point, I was just hoping we would get it back before I retired,” she said.
Painting appears to be in good condition
Munch said the painting seemed to be in good condition, but Cavalli-Bjorkman said the museum’s art restorer would undertake a closer examination.
The painting was stolen alongside two masterworks by French impressionist Pierre-August Renoir when an armed gang entered the museum on Stockholm’s waterfront just before closing time in December 2000.
While one man brandished a sub-machine gun in the lobby, two others seized the paintings from the second floor. As they escaped, scattering spikes on the road to delay pursuers, two cars exploded nearby, creating a diversion. The men then made off in a small boat which was later recovered.
Renoir’s “Conversation” was recovered by Swedish police in 2001. His “A Young Parisienne” is still missing.
In another high-profile art robbery in the Nordics, a version of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” was stolen from an Oslo museum last year in a case that has baffled the country and led to an abundance of conspiracy theories.