Cheshire Cat Photo Blog(...said the Cat: 'we're all mad here....')

Thieves broke into the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, today and stole works of Picasso, Monet, Gauguin, and Matisse worth, potentially, hundreds of millions of dollars, if you can put a price on such things. The theft was a huge blow to the private Triton Foundation collection, which was exhibited publicly for the first time! According to SFGate.com:

“It’s every museum director’s worst nightmare,” said Kunsthal director Emily Ansenk, who had been in Istanbul on business but returned immediately.

She declined to reveal any details of how the thieves got in and out with the paintings, or how the museum is protected, other than describing its security as “state of the art” and “functional.”

Willem van Hassel, the museum’s chairman, said its security systems are automated, and do not use guards on site.

Police arrived at the scene five minutes after an alarm was triggered, he said. He described the museum’s insurance as adequate for the exhibition.

All that I can say about THAT is: “We shall see.” 😉

The paintings were: Pablo Picasso‘s 1971 “Harlequin’s Head”; Claude Monet‘s 1901 “Waterloo Bridge, London” and “Charing Cross Bridge, London”; Henri Matisse‘s 1919 “Reading Girl in White and Yellow”; Paul Gauguin‘s 1898 “Girl in Front of Open Window”; Meyer de Haan‘s “Self-Portrait,” around 1890, and Lucian Freud‘s 2002 work “Woman with Eyes Closed.”

The Kunsthal museum is a display space that has no permanent collection of its own — the name means “art gallery” in Dutch.

The Cordia family collection includes works by more than 150 famed artists. Others whose work was on show include Paul Cezanne, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Edgar Degas and Andy Warhol.

-Bill at

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