The Hague (AFP)

A Van Gogh painting, "The Nuenen Presbytery Garden in Spring", has been stolen from a museum in the Netherlands closed to the public due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the establishment announced on Monday.

In the night from Sunday to Monday, around 3:15 a.m. (1:15 a.m. GMT), burglars broke into the glass front door of the Singer Laren museum, some 30 km from Amsterdam, before taking over the work dating from 1884, Dutch police said in a statement

"I am shocked and incredibly annoyed that this theft happened," said one of the museum's directors, Jan Rudolph de Lorm, during a video press conference.

"Art is there to be seen, to be appreciated, to inspire and bring comfort, especially in these difficult times when we find ourselves," he lamented.

The museum has been closed for about two weeks and until June 1 at least, the Dutch government having banned all public gatherings to fight against the spread of the new coronavirus, which has killed more than 770 people in the country.

Officers went to the scene immediately after the museum's anti-theft alarm went off, but found no trace of the burglars, police said.

The theft occurred, day to day, 167 years after the birth of the Dutch post-impressionist master on March 30, 1853.

"The garden of the Nuenen presbytery in spring" was loaned to the Singer Laren by the Groningen museum (north) as part of an exhibition dedicated to Dutch art.

- "The hunt is on" -

The value of the painting is estimated between one and six million euros, according to Arthur Brand, a Dutch art expert.

"The hunt is on," warned Brand, nicknamed the "Indiana Jones of the art world" and notably known for having found in 2015 two bronze horses by Josef Thorak, one of Hitler's favorite sculptors.

This is the third flight of a Van Gogh in the Netherlands since the 1990s, he told AFP.

Two masterpieces by the painter were stolen in 2002 from the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. "View of the Scheveningen Sea" (1882) and "Exit from the Reformed Church of Nuenen (1884-1885), whose value amounts to several million euros, were finally found in Italy in 2016. They have been on display at the Amsterdam Museum again since June 2019.

"To me, it sounds like the work of an imitator," analyzes Arthur Brand, according to which the modus operandi of thieves at the Singer Laren museum is similar to that observed during the robbery at the Van Gogh museum.

"The thieves only went to get a Van Gogh, while there are also other works in the museum" Singer Laren, he points out.

The Singer Laren museum has some 3,000 works of art, including some works by Dutch artists Piet Mondrian and Jan Toorop, as well as a work by the French Auguste Rodin.

© 2020 AFP