5/26/2023 0 Comments Octave durham![]() In 2013, Durham approached the Van Gogh Museum to offer assistance in finding the artworks, but the museum soon ended talks after they learned Durham wanted compensation and because he suggested that the museum buy the artworks back. He was later sent back to jail for a failed bank robbery. However, he spent only three years in jail he was released without revealing the whereabouts of the paintings and continuing to assert his innocence. Durham’s DNA was matched to the baseball cap left behind and he was sentenced to four and half years in jail. ![]() After his escape, Durham fled to Spain where he was arrested. However, he escaped by climbing up the side of his building, earning him the nickname of “the Monkey.” Police searched his house, but the paintings were not there. Dutch police also went to arrest Durham at his apartment. The thieves’ spending confirmed police suspicions Bieslijn was arrested and eventually sentenced to four years in jail. Within six weeks, the two thieves had spent all the money on items like luxury cars, watches, and trips to Disneyland Paris! The police were able to identify Durham and Bieslijn with the museum’s security cameras and they were tracked by police for over a year. Imperiale likely bought the works of art to use as payment within the mafia, or to use if he was caught to make a deal for a lesser sentence in exchange for offering to help find the stolen art works. The thieves ultimately sold the paintings to Raffaele Imperiale, a leader of the Amato Pagano clan of the Camorra Italian mafia for reportedly €350,000 in March 2003. Looted art is difficult to sell, as it cannot be sold on the open market, and the underground black market for art also has its risks. The thieves ran to their getaway car and utilized a police scanner to escape. The crime became one of the FBI’s top ten art crimes. His hard landing also caused his baseball cap to fall off, which was left behind. While the paintings held major art historical value, thief Octave Durham has stated that they selected the works simply because they were the smallest in the room and closest to their entry point. The theft took only three minutes and forty seconds. The thieves then rappelled out by rope on his descent, thief Durham hit the ground with force and damaged the corner of the seascape. The other artwork showed a church where Van Gogh’s father was a pastor the painting was a gift to Van Gogh’s mother in 1884. The church artwork was also the museum’s only painting still in its original stretcher, which was covered in splashes of paint, possibly from Van Gogh cleaning his brushes on it. Through the broken window, they entered the gallery that held View of the Sea at Scheveningen and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen and took the paintings. One, a seascape, was the museum’s only painting from Van Gogh’s Hague period (1881-1883). They tied a rope to a flagpole for their exit, and then they used a ladder to climb up and smash one of the security-reinforced glass windows with a sledgehammer. The theft occurred on the night of December 7th, 2002, when thieves Octave Durham and Henk Bieslijn, wearing ski masks and baseball hats, scaled the museum. Van Gogh is one of my favorite artists and as I read more and more about the crime, I realized that it had so many fascinating elements: a tell-all documentary, an Italian mafia leader, a hidden compartment, and a vertical-climb escape! This crime also resulted in the criminals being caught and the artwork returned, a rare occurrence. However, the art crime that I find the most captivating is the 2002 theft at the Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. When thinking about my favorite art crime, there are so many interesting cases to choose from – the Gardner heist, The Scream theft in Oslo, and even a golden toilet artwork stolen from Blenheim Palace. “Van Gogh Museum Theft: The Journey of Two Paintings.” The Coalition of Master’s Scholars on Material Culture, August 27, 2021.
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