THE HAGUE, Netherlands — In a dramatic scene early Friday morning, an art gallery in the southern Netherlands experienced a violent break-in where criminals forcibly accessed the location and made off with two valuable prints belonging to a renowned series by iconic American pop artist Andy Warhol. They damaged an additional two pieces during their escape, as per information shared by the gallery owner later that day.

Mark Peet Visser, the proprietor of MPV Gallery located in Oisterwijk, explained that the thieves targeted four prints from Warhol’s 1985 collection titled “Reigning Queens.” This series famously portrays portraits of female monarchs from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Swaziland, a landlocked nation in southern Africa, currently referred to as Eswatini.

Visser described the incident as caught on security cameras, labeling the thieves’ actions as “amateurish.” He expressed his disbelief over the extent of the damage caused during the heist, stating, “The explosive forced entry was so powerful that it resulted in substantial destruction to my building, and surrounding shops were also affected.” He added, “While they succeeded in breaking in, they struggled to remove the stolen items efficiently.” Frustratingly, the culprits discovered the artwork wouldn’t fit in their vehicle, leading to the prints being yanked from their frames, which ultimately rendered them irreversibly damaged.

Although Visser refrained from disclosing the exact worth of the four signed and numbered pieces, he indicated that he intended to showcase them as a collective exhibit at an art fair in Amsterdam scheduled for later this month.

The thieves managed to escape with portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II, while the prints featuring Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Ntombi Tfwala (currently referred to as the queen mother of Eswatini) were left abandoned on the street, as recounted by Visser.

In the aftermath, authorities have requested assistance from the public, urging witnesses to come forward, while forensic teams investigate the severely impacted premises to gather any potential evidence regarding the robbery.