A Dutch city corridor has admitted it “most likely” threw away dozens of items of artwork, together with a print by Andy Warhol.
Maashorst municipality mentioned it believes the lacking artworks have been “accidentally disposed of with bulky waste”.
“It is not expected that the works of art will be found again,” the Dutch authority admitted.
It added: “The board of mayor and aldermen regrets this very much.”
The artworks included a Eighties silkscreen print of the previous Dutch monarch, Queen Beatrix, by Warhol.
Dutch media reported that 46 items of artwork have been misplaced in whole, and a few of these had been saved in wheelie bins within the basement of the city corridor.
The items of artwork disappeared after a reorganisation of two beforehand separate municipalities, Uden and Landerd, and the renovation of a city corridor.
Varied items of artwork reportedly suffered mud and water injury through the renovation, together with the Warhol, which was final seen in September 2023. A month later, it was mentioned to be gone.
Explaining how this might need come about, Maashorst mentioned that nobody was correctly assigned as accountable for the artwork, with a failure of coverage and procedures.
There was additionally mentioned to be “insufficient rapid action” when it was first found that the artworks have been lacking.
The conclusions have been reached after an unbiased company performed a months-long investigation into the incident.
In November final 12 months, “amateurish” thieves blew open the doorways of a gallery within the Netherlands and made off with a variety of Warhol prints.
They received away with prints of Queen Elizabeth II and Margrethe II of Denmark, however prints of Queen Beatrix and Ntombi Tfwala, who’s now often known as the queen mom of Eswatini, have been deserted.
