The renowned art detective recovers the stolen treasure of centenary documents: “could not

A Dutch art detective has recovered an invaluable treasure of stolen documents from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century, including several UNESCO files of the world’s first multinational corporation.

Arthur Brand, nicknamed the “Indiana Jones of the art world” Due to his high profile recovery of stolen masterpieces, he said that the last discovery was one of the most significant.

“In my career, I have been able to return a fantastic stolen art, from Picassos to a van Gogh … However, this finding is one of the most prominent aspects of my career,” Brand told News.

Many of the documents have the first days of the Dutch Company of the Eastern Indies (VOC), whose commercial and commercial globetroting operations contributed to the Dutch “Golden Age”, when the Netherlands were a global superpower.

The 17th -century VOC documents contain a “fascinating vision of the events of that time in places such as Europe, India, Indonesia, South Africa and Latin America,” Brand said.

A 1602 document counts the first VOC meeting, during which its famous logo was designed, considered the world’s first corporate logo.

The merchants of Voc crisored the world, catapulting the Netherlands to a worldwide commercial power but also exploiting and oppressing the colonies he conquered.

The company was also a leading diplomatic power and a document relates a visit in 1700 by the senior voc officials with the Emperor Mogol court in India.

“Since the Netherlands were one of the most powerful players in the world at that time in terms of military, trade, shipping and colonies, these documents are part of world history,” Brand said.

UNESCO agrees, designating Voc’s archives as part of his documentary collection “Memory of the World”.

“The voc archives constitute the most complete and extensive source of the history of the early modern world anywhere,” says UNESCO on its website.

The Tover also presented early ship trunks of one of the world’s most famous admirals, Michiel de Ruyter, whose feats are studied in naval academies even today.

De Ruyter won fame for his daring raid of 1667 to attack the English fleet in the Medway River, one of the greatest humiliations in world naval history.

The ship’s records, written in their own hand, relate the first experience of the Naval War Admiral, the battle of San Vicente of 1641 against the Spanish fleet.

“An extraordinary treasure”

No less fascinating is the “Dunnit Who” of how the brand arrived by the documents.

Brand received an email from someone who had stumbled with a seemingly old manuscript box while cleaning the attic of a disabled family member.

This family member occasionally lent money to a friend, who would leave something as a guarantee, in this case the document box.

“I received some photos and I couldn’t believe my eyes. This was in fact an extraordinary treasure,” Brand told News.

Brand investigated with the Dutch police and concluded that the documents had been stolen in 2015 of the vast national archives in The Hague.

The main suspect, an employee of the files who had in fact left the box as a guarantee but never picked it up, has died since then.

Brand compared the robbery with a daring robbery by a curator in the British Museum, which absorbed some 1,800 objects, selling some of them on eBay.

The art detective said that it spent many nights crossing the documents, transported over time.

“Wars in the sea, negotiations in imperial courts, trips distant to barely explored regions and gentlemen,” he told News.

“I felt that I had entered Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasury Island.”

World renowned art slash

Brand has reached the headlines worldwide for its high profile recoveries of stolen works of art.

Earl this year, it helped the Dutch police break the case of the mysterious Disappearance of a painting by Brueghel of a Polish museum more than 50 years ago.

The other achievements of the brand include Returning a Vincent Van Gogh Paint a museum in 2023, more than three years after it was stolen.

In 2022, he returned a Roman statue that had been stolen from Musee Du Pays Chatillonnais in 1973. He also recovered the “adolescence” of Salvador Dali, a paint by Picasso and “Hitler horses”, sculptures that were once out of Berlin’s voucher of the Nazi leader.

The art detective in 2017 told “News Mornings” that He is negotiated with offers With terrorist groups, the mafia and a series of gloomy characters to track pieces on the black market.

“On the one hand, you have the police, insurance companies, collectors and, on the other hand, you have criminals, art thieves and forgivers. So there are two different types of worlds, and they don’t communicate. So I get in the middle,” Brand said.

• Art
• Netherlands