Stolen Vincent Van Gogh paintings return to Amsterdam museum

The paintings - the 1882 View of the Sea at Scheveningen, and 1884-85 work Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen - were discovered last year by Italian police investigating suspected mobsters for cocaine trafficking.

The artworks were wrapped in cotton sheets, stuffed in a box and hidden behind a wall in a toilet, said General Gianluigi D'Alfonso of the Italian financial police, who was at the museum to watch the ceremonial unveiling.

They were found in a farmhouse near Naples as police seized €20m worth of assets, including villas, apartments and even a small plane.

Investigators say the assets are linked to two Camorra drug kingpins, Mario Cerrone and Raffaele Imperiale.

"After years shrouded in darkness, they can now shine again," Dutch minister for education, culture and science Jet Bussemaker said as an orange screen slid away to reveal the paintings behind a glass wall.

Italy's interior minister Angelino Alfano said last year that the paintings were "considered among the artworks most searched for in the world, on the FBI's list of the Top 10 art crimes".

They are back on display at the museum before being taken to its conservation studio for repair, although they suffered remarkably little damage as thieves who had climbed up a ladder and smashed a window to get into the museum in 2002 ripped them out of their frames and fled.

Read the #VanGoghReturns press release: 'Home at last: after 14 years the stolen Van Goghs are back in the museum' https://t.co/197jcnoOv9 pic.twitter.com/nIeH3t1HV0

— Van Gogh Museum (@vangoghmuseum) March 21, 2017

"It is not only a miracle that the works have been recovered but it's even more miraculous almost that they are in relatively unharmed condition," Mr Rueger said.

He was on holiday when the call came last year from Italian authorities who believed they had recovered the paintings.

He said: "I was hopeful but also a little hesitant because, over the course of the years, we had multiple occasions when people phoned us, contacted us, claiming that they knew something about the whereabouts of the works, and each time it was false, the trace went cold. The way has been peppered with disappointment."

Museum experts dispatched to Italy to check the authenticity of the works quickly turned Mr Rueger's doubts into delight.

"It was something we had secretly been hoping for for all those years," he said.

The two small works are not typical of Van Gogh's later and better-known works, but are still vital pieces for the museum's collection, Mr Rueger said.

The Scheveningen seascape, with a fishing boat and rough sea under a cloudy sky, is one of Van Gogh's earliest works and the only painting in the museum's collection painted during his time in The Hague.

It suffered a missing rectangular chip from the bottom left-hand corner.

The painting of the church in Nuenen portrayed the village where his parents lived.

"He had painted as a gift to his mother, so it's a very personal and emotional connection," Mr Rueger said.

He added that the paintings are back for good at a museum which is home to dozens of works by Van Gogh, whose paintings fetch millions of pounds on the rare occasions they come up for auction.

"The security, I can assure you, is of triple-A quality now, so I'm very confident that everything is safe in the museum," he said.

- AP