Frans Hals £13m Dutch masterpiece Two Laughing Boys stolen for third time

The work, painted in 1626, was targeted by thieves in 1988 and 2011 - only to be stolen again
Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer by Frans Hals
ANP/AFP via Getty Images
Ewan Somerville27 August 2020

A £13 million seminal Dutch painting has been stolen from a museum for the third time.

Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer by Frans Hals was stolen from a small museum in the Dutch town of Leerdam.

Police said thieves broke open the back door at around 3.30am on Wednesday and had made off by the time officers arrived.

The work, painted in 1626, was first stolen in 1988 along with a Jacob van Ruisdael’s Forest View with Flowering Elderberry. Both paintings were recovered three years later.

The same paintings were taken again from the Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden museum in 2011 but retrieved after six months.

The thieves forced open the back door of the museum
ANP/AFP via Getty Images

Since that theft, the museum's most valuable works have been kept away from the public under staff supervision, Dutch media reports. Two Laughing Boys has an estimated value of €15m (£13.4m).

It is the second theft of a painting from a Dutch museum closed to the public because of the COVID-19 pandemic, after the 1884 Van Gogh painting Spring Garden was stolen from the Singer Laren Museum in March.

It has not been recovered.

"Criminals know that major museums have sufficient security" but smaller regional museums less so, art expert Arthur Brand told the Dutch broadcaster RTL Nieuws.

"They probably concluded it's worth a lot of money, and it's relatively easy to steal."

Frans Hals, who died in 1666, has been described as one of the great Old Masters of the Dutch bourgeoisie of the Golden Age.

Police said the investigation to recover the painting would call on forensic specialists and art-theft experts. Officers are also checking CCTV images and have appealed for information from the public.

A spokesman for the museum referred all questions to the police.

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