MASTERPIECES STOLEN FROM ROTTERDAM MUSEUM MAY HAVE BEEN BURNT

Seven paintings stolen last year from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam could have been burnt by Olga Dogaru, the mother of the alleged ringleader of the theft. Romania’s National History Museum director Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu told AP that specialists had found “small fragments of painting primer, the remains of canvas, the remains of paint” and copper and steel nails, some of which pre-dated the 20th century. Romanian prosecutors said that Ms Dogaru claimed she first buried the art, but that in February this year she dug up the paintings and burned them, after police began searching her village. Her son had been arrested in January 2013. The paintings stolen were Picasso’s 1971 Harlequin Head; Monet’s 1901 Waterloo Bridge, and Charing Cross Bridge; Matisse’s 1919 Reading Girl in White and Yellow; Gauguin’s 1898 Girl in Front of Open Window; Meyer de Haan’s ca 1890 Self-Portrait, and Lucian Freud’s 2002 Woman with Eyes Closed. They have been valued at between $65m and $130m, and were insured.