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A painting by Vincent van Gogh was stolen during an overnight break-in at a Dutch museum that is currently closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, police and museum officials said Monday.
The incident occurred at the Singer Laren Museum in Laren in the Netherlands at 3:15 a.m. local time, police said. The large glass door of the building had been broken into.
Police said that officers reported to the museum after the burglar alarm went off but did not find the perpetrator or perpetrators in the museum or in the vicinity.
Authorities are investigating the incident and asked residents in the area for potential footage of the person or people responsible at the time of the break-in.
"I am shocked and unbelievably pissed off," museum director Jan Rudolph de Lorm, said during a press conference Monday morning. "This is a huge blow. This is extremely difficult, especially in these times."
“We are angry, shocked, and sad,” said Evert van Os, the museum's general director.
The museum did not return a request for comment.
The van Gogh masterpiece, "The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884," was on loan from the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands.
Monday marks the 167th anniversary of the birth of van Gogh.
The value of the painting was unclear, but art detective Arthur Brand told AD.nl that the painting was worth between 1 million to 6 million euros.
The Singer Laren Museum had previously announced that it was closed until June 1 to stop the spread of the coronavirus. There are more than 11,000 positive cases of coronavirus in the Netherlands.
"We do not want to take any risks and the safety of our visitors and employees is paramount, but we do it with pain in our hearts: Singer Laren loves nothing more than visitors and guests received," museum officials said about the closure.
The Netherlands is under a "targeted lockdown" that does not allow groups of more than three people together in public unless they are members of the same family.