Focus on this artwork and discuss the Thefts.
The painting belongs to the Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden museum. It has been stolen from the museum three times: in 1988, 2011, and 2020. One theory of why it is stolen so often is because the various theft attempts have defined its market value, making it easier to sell as stolen property.In 1988, the facility manager was forced to turn off an alarm under threat of being shot. In 1991, it was returned after a ransom was paid, together with another painting called “Forest View with Flowering Elderberry,” by Jacob Salomonsz van Ruysdael, which had been stolen at the same time.On 28 October 2011, it was recovered after being stolen for a second time 27 April 2011.The most recent theft was in late August 2020. In early April 2021, a person was arrested in the town of Baarn, as a suspect in the theft the Hals painting and a work by Vincent van Gogh called The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen which was  stolen from the Singer Laren museum in Laren in March 2020. Neither painting was recovered at that time. Art detective Arthur Brand told a reporter that the person in custody probably did not know the location of the works because "stolen artwork was often moved around quickly by criminal gangs". 
A BBC News item stated the value of the Frans Hals painting to be "some €15m (£13m; $17.5m)" but provided no source for that information. An article in The Guardian the same day said the work "would be expected to fetch £13.4m at auction". On 24 September, the man was convicted of the thefts and sentenced to eight years imprisonment.
Laren Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden BBC News Baarn The Guardian Frans Hals The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen Singer Laren Vincent van Gogh