Two portraits of queens by Andy Warhol have been stolen following an explosion at an art gallery in Oisterwijk, and two others were dumped on the streets, owner Mark Peet Visser has told broadcaster NOS.

The screen prints had been stored at the gallery ahead of their sale at the art fair Pan Amsterdam at the end of November.

The thieves used explosives to break into the gallery on Thursday night but could not fit all four Warhols in their getaway car, security camera images show. The two works left behind and the other two are “damaged beyond repair”, Visser said. “It is a terrible shame,” he said.

The works were made in 1985 and show four reigning queens, Beatrix of the Netherlands, Elizabeth in the UK, Danish queen Margrethe and Swaziland queen Ntombi Twala. Elizabeth and Margrethe were taken by the thieves.

Coincidently, an exhibition featuring the four queens is currently running at the Het Loo palace.

“They are not extremely rare,” art historian Willem Baars told NOS. “You can buy Warhols all over the world, but this series has extra meaning here because it features Beatrix.”

It will be difficult to sell the works because they are numbered and can be identified straight away, he said.

In 2021, four screen prints of Beatrix were sold at auction in The Hague for €217,000. Just days after her death in 2022, two portraits of Elizabeth sold for £529,200 and £554,400 at a Sotheby’s London online sale.

Website Artsy.net currently has 49 listed for sale.