Amsterdam (AFP)

An investigator nicknamed for his exploits the "Indiana Jones of the art world" announced Thursday to have received two recent photos of a stolen painting by Vincent van Gogh, proving according to him that the work stolen from a museum during confinement still exists.

"After three months of intensive investigation, I was given these photos. This is the first + proof of life +" of this oil painting made in 1884, "Le Jardin du presbytère de Nuenen au printemps" , Dutch expert Arthur Brand told AFP.

The most valuable canvases are often destroyed when the perpetrators of such theft realize that they cannot be sold, he said.

Thieves seized this painting by Van Gogh on March 30 in the Singer Laren Museum, near Amsterdam, then closed due to the epidemic caused by the new coronavirus, after having forced the glass front door of the building .

- "Mafia circles" -

Arthur Brand said he received a few days ago from a source that he does not wish to identify two photos, "circulating in mafia circles", of this work estimated, according to Dutch media, at between one and six million 'euros.

The photos, of which AFP obtained two copies, show the painting, as well as the front page of the New York Times daily newspaper of May 30 to prove the date on which they were taken.

One of the photos shows part of the back of the painting, which notably shows the provenance of the canvas and the history of its owners, which is the equivalent of a kind of fingerprint.

"There is no doubt in my mind that this is the authentic work," said the expert, however, noting a new scratch at the bottom of the paint that could have been done during the flight.

He observed that with these photos, the thieves may be trying to find a buyer in the midst of organized crime.

It "could also be a plan to try to make Durham suspicious because they used his book in the photos," he said.

In the front page of the New York Times appearing in one of these photos, we can indeed see an interview with Arthur Brand and Octave Durham, the famous Dutch thief who stole two paintings from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002.

The latter was however hospitalized at the time of the facts in this city of the Netherlands and "he has a concrete alibi", assured the investigator who, questioned by AFP on the fact of knowing if the police had been warned, simply replied that he had "followed the usual channels".

The motivations of the thieves, on the other hand, could be more personal, continued Arthur Brand, who in the past found in particular a Picasso and "Hitler's horses", life-size bronze sculptures that sat enthroned outside the chancellery in Berlin when the dictator occupied it.

But "maybe they want to make a deal with prosecutors, using paint as leverage".

"Or maybe they just want to play with me because they know I'm investigating this story and they know I made it personal because they stole a Van Gogh right from my backyard ".

© 2020 AFP