In a bureaucratic blunder that’s as humorous as it’s tragic, the Dutch municipality of Maashorst seems to have by accident thrown out a invaluable Andy Warhol silk-screen print — together with practically 50 different artworks.
In keeping with an unbiased investigation commissioned by the municipality first reported by the New York Times, the items probably disappeared throughout a current city corridor renovation. Officers acknowledged the error final week in a letter to the council, although they admitted the investigation was inconclusive. The possibilities of recovering the lacking works, nonetheless, are slim.
“It’s unlikely that the lacking artworks will ever be discovered,” the mayor and aldermen wrote.
Among the many casualties was a brightly coloured 1985 portrait of former Queen Beatrix from Warhol’s Reigning Queens sequence — a picture acquainted sufficient that, as Amsterdam-based artwork detective Arthur Model put it to the Occasions, “You don’t even must know something about artwork” to acknowledge it.
Valued between $40,000 and $50,000, the Beatrix print was hardly Warhol’s most costly within the sequence. Richard Polsky of Richard Polsky Artwork Authentication identified {that a} print of Queen Elizabeth II would have price the municipality nearer to $250,000. “They’re fortunate they didn’t personal ‘Queen Elizabeth,’” he wrote. The most costly Beatrix silkscreen offered for more than $550,000 again in 2010 at Christie’s Amsterdam.
Officers haven’t detailed precisely how the artwork was saved, nor who finally licensed its disposal. Hans van der Pas, the mayor of Maashorst, declined to touch upon specifics however informed native media, “This isn’t the way you deal with invaluable issues. Nevertheless it did occur, and we remorse that.”
There may be nonetheless a sliver of hope: Model speculated that somebody might need quietly rescued the Warhol from the trash. “I’d be nice with that individual holding it,” he mentioned. “It might be safer with them than with the municipality.”
The incident comes simply months after one other misadventure involving Warhol’s Reigning Queens sequence within the Netherlands. In November, thieves used explosives to break into a gallery within the south of the nation, making off with 4 prints. Two have been later recovered.
“If this continues,” Model warned, “we quickly gained’t have many Warhols of Queen Beatrix left.”
