A pair of priceless art works painted by Vincent Van Gogh stolen 14 years ago were recovered during a raid on an Italian farmhouse, Naples' chief public prosecutor said Friday.
"Seascape at Scheveningen" and "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen," created in the late 19th century, were stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002.
"After all those years you no longer dare to count on a possible return. The paintings have been found! That I would be able to ever pronounce these words is something I had no longer dared to hope for," Axel Rüger, director of the Van Gogh Museum, said in a statement.
The paintings were recovered with a number of other items worth "tens of millions of euros" in a raid targeting a Naples-based crime organization.
It is not clear when the paintings will be returned to the museum. They will be presented as burdens of proof in a criminal case. The investigation is not yet complete and there is not yet a set trial date.
The paintings were removed from their frames during the theft and appeared to have some damage from their years outside the museum.
"It is unknown where the works were kept after the theft in 2002, but it can be assumed that the paintings were not preserved under suitable conditions," according to the museum.
"Seascape at Scheveningen," painted in 1882, is an early example of Van Gogh's style which he was beginning to develop. It is one of only two seascape paintings he created while at The Hague in the Netherlands from 1881 to 1883.
Van Gogh painted "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen" on a small canvas in 1884 for his mother. The painting features an image of the church in the Brabant village of Nuenen where Van Gogh's father was minister. Van Gogh reworked the painting in 1885 after his father died, adding church members with some of them wearing shawls of mourning. It is the only painting in the museum collection with a depiction of a church.
The heist was included in the FBI's "Top Ten Art Crimes" in 2005.
Using a ladder, two men climbed to the roof and broke into the museum. Within minutes they had taken the paintings which are valued at nearly $30 million. Through DNA, the men were convicted of stealing the paintings in 2003, however the paintings were not recovered.
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