On Friday 1 may 2009 at 12:15 in the afternoon, the Scheringa Museum of Realist Art was raided by armed criminals who disappeared with two valuable paintings.

Around noon a couple of masked men entered the museum and held the receptionist and a guard at gunpoint. Heading straight for their goal they proceeded to one of the museums halls and grasped a gouache by Salvador Dali titled 'Adolescence’ [1941] and an oil painting by Tamara de Lempicka titled ‘La musicienne’ [1929].

Once in their procession they disappeared in a black Volkswagen Golf. Up to now there is no trace of the robbers, their loot or their getaway vehicle.


The Scheringa Museum of Realist Art, an initiative by the art-collectors Dirk en Baukje Scheringa, is located in Spanbroek, 50km north from Amsterdam. Within a relatively short period of time the Scheringa Museum of Realist Art has build an interesting collection of 500 works of art, varying from paintings and sculptures to photographs. Dirk Scheringa is a highly successful businessman and founder of the DSB Bank. He is chairman of the football [= soccer] club AZ which only last week became national champion in The Netherlands.