{"id":61302,"date":"2025-04-29T22:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T22:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/61302\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T22:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T22:07:11","slug":"50000-andy-warhol-artwork-likely-thrown-away-by-dutch-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/61302\/","title":{"rendered":"$50,000 Andy Warhol Artwork Likely Thrown Away by Dutch Officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn a bureaucratic blunder that is as funny as it is tragic, the Dutch municipality of Maashorst appears to have accidentally thrown out a valuable Andy Warhol<\/a> silk-screen print \u2014 along with nearly 50 other artworks.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to an independent investigation commissioned by the municipality first reported by the New York Times<\/a>, the pieces likely disappeared during a recent town hall renovation. Officials acknowledged the error last week in a letter to the council, though they admitted the investigation was inconclusive. The chances of recovering the missing works, however, are slim.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mark<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s not likely that the missing artworks will ever be found,\u201d the mayor and aldermen wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the casualties was a brightly colored 1985 portrait of former Queen Beatrix from Warhol\u2019s\u00a0Reigning Queens\u00a0series \u2014 an image familiar enough that, as Amsterdam-based art detective Arthur Brand put it to the Times, \u201cYou don\u2019t even have to know anything about art\u201d to recognize it.<\/p>\n

\n\tValued between $40,000 and $50,000, the Beatrix print was hardly Warhol\u2019s most expensive in the series. Richard Polsky of Richard Polsky Art Authentication pointed out that a print of Queen Elizabeth II would have cost the municipality closer to $250,000. \u201cThey\u2019re lucky they didn\u2019t own \u2018Queen Elizabeth,\u2019\u201d he wrote. The most expensive Beatrix silkscreen sold for more than $550,000 <\/a>back in 2010 at Christie\u2019s Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

\n\tOfficials have not detailed exactly how the art was stored, nor who ultimately authorized its disposal. Hans van der Pas, the mayor of Maashorst, declined to comment on specifics but told local media, \u201cThis is not how you handle valuable things. But it did happen, and we regret that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is still a sliver of hope: Brand speculated that someone might have quietly rescued the Warhol from the trash. \u201cI\u2019d be fine with that person keeping it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would be safer with them than with the municipality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe incident comes just months after another misadventure involving Warhol\u2019s\u00a0Reigning Queens\u00a0series in the Netherlands. In November, thieves used explosives to break into a gallery<\/a> in the south of the country, making off with four prints. Two were later recovered<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIf this continues,\u201d Brand warned, \u201cwe soon won\u2019t have many Warhols of Queen Beatrix left.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a bureaucratic blunder that is as funny as it is tragic, the Dutch municipality of Maashorst appears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,18846,4022,77,16,15,31707],"class_list":{"0":"post-61302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-christies","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-warhol"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114423532348406166","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}