A well-known painting entitled "Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer" by the Dutch painter Frans Hals , a member of the Dutch Golden Age, was stolen for the third time from a museum in the Netherlands, police said Thursday.

The 17th-century master's canvas was stolen early Wednesday from the Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden museum in Leerdam.

The painting had already been stolen from the same museum in 1988 and 2011 , and was recovered after three years and six months, respectively.

Dutch police said in a statement that agents went to the museum located in Leerdam, about 60 km south of Amsterdam, when the alarm sounded at around 03:30 a.m. but failed to find the robber (s) .

"After the museum director provided access to the building, it was found that the back door had been forced open and a painting stolen, titled 'Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer,'" police said.

Frans Hals was a contemporary of Rembrandt and Vermeer , also of the Golden Age, which coincided with a flourishing of commerce and colonialism. This stage of Dutch art lasted almost the entire seventeenth century.

Hals is best known for works such as "Smiling Knight", which is part of the Wallace collection in London, and "The Gypsy Girl", which is currently housed in the Louvre museum in Paris .

Dutch art detective Arthur Brand, dubbed the "Indiana Jones of the art world" after tracking down and finding several stolen works, tweeted that "the search has already begun" for "Frans Hals' important and precious painting."

Brand added that the canvas was stolen to coincide with the anniversary of Hals's death in 1666.

In March, Vincent van Gogh's painting "The Presbytery Garden in Neunen in Spring" was stolen from another museum, closed by the viral epidemic.

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