A Dutch town hall admitted that it “most likely” accidentally eliminated 46 works of art, including an Andy Warhol print from the former Dutch queen, during renovation work last year.
The municipality of Maashorst said that the works, including an impression in Silkscreen from the 1980s of Queen Beatrix worth around € 15,000 (£ 12,800), disappeared during the work at the town hall of last year.
An investigation indicated that the works were stored in a basement during renovations and a lack of directives to store works of art could have been among the reasons why they ended up being thrown.
Mayor Hans Van der Pas said to the Omroep Brabant public broadcaster: “This is not how you treat valuables. But that has happened. We regret it.”
A declaration from the municipality said Thursday that the works were put into service during the works at the town hall in Uden – which is incorporated into the neighboring municipality of Landerd to form the municipality of Maashorst.
“It is very likely that works of art have been accidentally removed with garbage,” they said.
A report by investigators revealed that certain works of art were stored in wheeled trash cans and were “not carefully managed”, according to the local newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.
The report concludes: “The property has not been properly established, no policy and procedures have been established concerning renovation and insufficient measures were taken when the works were missing.”
He continued by saying that a lack of guidelines for the registration, storage, conservation and safety of works, also contributed to factors.
The local media report that the 46 works of art were worth around € 22,000 (£ 18,800) and the municipality of Maashorst said it was unlikely that they were never found.
Queen Beatrix reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until she abdicated in 2013, when she was succeeded by her son King Willem-Alexander.
The Queen Beatrix print was part of the Warhol series by reigning Queens, which included 16 colorful prints of four monarchs, including the late Queen Elizabeth II, Margrethe II of Denmark – who abdicated in 2023 – and Queen Ntombi Twala of Eswatini, previously known as Swaziland.
Warhol, considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, created the prints in 1985 – two years before his death.
In November of last year, Warhol prints from Queen Beatrix and Ntombi Twala were stolen – and abandoned – during a breakage on a Dutch art gallery.
Local police at the time said that thieves had taken four prints in Silkscreen from the MPV gallery in the northern province of Brabant and fled by car.
But the portraits of Queen Beatrix and Queen Ntombi were then abandoned because they did not return to the vehicle, we reported at the time.
