IRISH police were flying to Belgium yesterday after paintings stolen
from a multi-million pound art collection in the republic seven years
ago were found in Belgium.
Four of the works taken from the County Wicklow home of collector Sir
Alfred Beit are thought to have been recovered and three men, all
believed to be from Dublin, were being questioned by detectives in
Brussels.
A total of 18 paintings, by artists including Vermeer, Goya,
Gainsborough, Velasquez, and Metsu, were snatched in the raid at
millionaire Sir Alfred's Russborough House home in the village of
Blessington.
The thieves, believed to be part of a Dublin-based gang, dumped seven
of the paintings soon after, apparently because they were of relatively
little value, and a Metsu was found in Turkey two years ago and returned
to Ireland.
The four paintings found in Belgium were understood to include
Vermeer's The Letter, said to be worth up to #20m and the most valuable
of the stolen old masters.
Not long before the theft, the entire collection -- with a present-day
value running into tens of millions of pounds -- was donated to the
Irish nation by Sir Alfred and the recovered Metsu is now in Dublin's
National Gallery.
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