2 van Gogh Paintings Stolen From Amsterdam Are Recovered in Italy.
AMSTERDAM — Two van Gogh paintings that were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002 have been recovered in Italy, the chief anti-mafia prosecutor in Naples announced on Friday.
They were retrieved during a huge and continuing investigation into organized crime by a specialized team in the Italian public prosecutions department, the museum said.
“The paintings have been found!” Axel Rüger, director of the Van Gogh Museum, said in a statement released on Friday. “That I would be able to ever pronounce these words is something I had no longer dared to hope for.”
The paintings, “Seascape at Scheveningen” (1882) and “Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen” (1884/85), early works van Gogh painted in Holland, were stolen from the Amsterdam museum very early one December morning. The burglars climbed to the roof using a ladder, broke through a window, stole the two works and then escaped out the side of the building using a rope.'>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/01/arts/international/van-gogh-paintings-recovered.html?