HOORN, The Netherlands — On a wintry night in January 2005, an art thief slipped into the Westfries Museum here, the authorities believe, and hid beneath drapery on a 17th-century coffin as the doors were locked for the night.

荷兰霍伦——2005年一月的一个寒夜，一个艺术品窃贼溜进西弗兰里博物馆(Westfries Museum)，官方认为，夜间闭馆时，他就躲在一口17世纪棺材的盖毯之下。

After disabling the alarm system, the theory goes, the thief allowed at least one collaborator into the small museum, which houses works from the Dutch Golden Age. When the Westfries opened the next morning, 24 paintings worth a total of about 1.3 million euros, about $1.44 million, along with 70 pieces of antique silver, were gone, leaving only frames hanging on the gallery walls.

警方推断，这个窃贼弄坏了警报系统，让至少一个同伙溜进了这座储存着荷兰黄金时代艺术品的小博物馆。西弗兰里博物馆翌日开门之时，发现有价值130万欧元（约合144万美元）的24幅油画失窃，此外还有70件古董银器也不见踪影，画廊里只剩下空荡荡的画框。

For a decade, the whereabouts of the stolen works remained a mystery, and the assumption was that they had disappeared into the murky world of international art theft.

十年来，这些失窃艺术品都下落不明，人们认为，它们已经进入国际盗窃艺术品市场的污浊世界。

Then, this summer, representatives of an ultranationalist militia in Ukraine contacted the Dutch Embassy in Kiev, saying the group had discovered the art in a villa near Donetsk that had belonged to the government of the deposed president Viktor F. Yanukovych and was prepared to return it.

今年夏天，乌克兰一个极端民族主义的民兵组织派代表联系位于基辅的荷兰大使馆，说他们在顿涅茨克附近的一个乡间庄园发现了这些艺术品，艺术品原本属于被罢黜的总统维克托·F·亚努科维奇(Viktor F. Yanukovych)的政府，这个民兵组织打算归还它。

“They said that as a good gesture, we want to hand over the paintings,” Ad Geerdink, the director of the Westfries Museum, which went public with the case last week in an effort to recover the works before they could be sold on the black market, said on Saturday, “but since we risked our lives to save the paintings, we expect something in return. And that something, of course, was money.”

“他们说这是一个善意的姿态，他们希望移交这些油画，”西弗兰里博物馆馆长埃德·格尔丁克(Ad Geerdink)在星期六说，上星期他公开谈及此案，力图在这些艺术品被卖入黑市之前收回它们，“但他们冒着危险拯救了这些油画，所以想要点回报，这个回报，当然就是钱。”

The museum hired Arthur Brand, a Dutch art crime investigator, to go to Ukraine to negotiate with the militia, the Battalion of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. “I told them to be careful,” Mr. Brand said in a telephone interview on Monday, “because, although they said they would be willing to give the work back, they were talking about a finder’s fee, and they had estimated that the work was worth 50 million. I guessed already that they’d ask for 10 percent.”

博物馆雇佣了荷兰艺术犯罪调查者阿瑟·布兰德(Arthur Brand)去往乌克兰，同这个名为“乌克兰民族主义组织军团”的民兵组织谈判。“我告诉他们要当心，”星期一，布兰德在接受电话采访时说，“因为尽管他们声称愿意归还这些作品，但他们要求收取寻回者的报酬，他们估计这些作品价值5000万欧元，我觉得他们会索要这笔估价的10%作为报酬。”

On Aug. 7, Mr. Brand said, he and representatives from the Dutch Embassy met with Borys Humeniuk, the deputy commander of the battalion, in Kiev and presented him with documentation that estimated the value of the works at 500,000, on the assumption that they were now in bad condition after almost a decade on the black market, and offered him a fee of 50,000.

布兰德说，8月7日，他同荷兰大使馆的代表在基辅会见了该组织的副总指挥官鲍里斯·休莫尼乌克(Borys Humeniuk)，向后者提供文件，证明那些艺术品的估价在50万美元（建立在这些艺术品在黑市上流传了将近十年，保养状况不佳的估计之上），并提出支付报酬五万欧元。

After hearing that offer, Mr. Humeniuk no longer seemed so willing to return the paintings and the silver, he said.

布兰德说，休莫尼乌克听到这个建议，就显得不太愿意归还油画和银器了。

“Borys repeated two times, ‘My soldiers will not accept this’ and he said, ‘the people who sent me will not accept 50,000,”’ Mr. Brand said. “Then the meeting was over and he said, ‘I will do my best to negotiate with my people.’ Then we waited.”

“鲍里斯连说了两遍，‘我的士兵们不会接受的，’他还说，‘把这些画给我的人们不会接受五万欧元，’”布兰德说。“会议结束后，他说，‘我会尽最大努力和我的人谈判。’然后我们就等着。”

In early September, the Westfries Museum officials contacted the Ukrainian authorities, Mr. Geerdink said. Months passed without any progress in the case, he said.

9月初，西弗兰里博物馆的官员们开始与乌克兰官方联系，格尔丁克说，之后几个月毫无进展。

During that time, Mr. Brand said, he received information that the art was being offered for sale to other parties.

布兰德说，在这段时间里，他收到消息，这批艺术品已经开始向其他人士出售。

“We hear from our informants that they first offered to other groups 24 paintings, and then we heard about 16, and then we heard about 12,” he said. “That was a strong indication that they were succeeding in selling at least some of the paintings. That was a strong motivation for us to go to the press.”

“我们从自己的消息提供者那里得知，他们先是向其他团体出售24幅油画，接着我们又听说他们要卖16幅，后来又听说要卖12幅，”他说。“这个迹象强烈表明，他们已经至少成功地卖出了一些画作。这是我们向媒体公开此事的强烈动机之一。”

Mr. Geerdink said: “We felt it was now or never. If we don’t act, the work will be sold and we’ll never get it back.”

格尔丁克说：“我们觉得现在是唯一的机会。如果我们无所作为，这些作品就会被卖掉，我们就永远不可能收回它们了。”

“We want potential buyers to know that it’s stolen art,” he added, “and we want to motivate the Ukrainian officials, because they say they will do something, but they never tell us what they do.”

“我们希望潜在买家知道，它们是被盗窃的艺术品，”他补充说，“我们想刺激一下乌克兰官员的积极性，因为他们说，他们会做点什么，但从来不告诉我们他们到底做了什么。”

The stolen works are by relatively unknown Dutch Golden Age painters, including Jan van Goyen, Jan Linsen and Jacob Waben. “When you look at it from an international or national perspective, the paintings weren’t Rembrandts, Jan Steen or Vermeer; they were the category below,” Mr. Geerdink said. “When you look at it on a regional or local scale, they’re invaluable, because there aren’t similar paintings. These are landscapes or cityscapes and marine paintings that are so important for the story that we as a museum tell about the Golden Age of this area.”

这些失窃的艺术品都是来自不知名的荷兰黄金时代画家，包括杨·凡·格因(Jan van Goyen)、杨·林森(Jan Linsen)和雅克布·瓦本(Jacob Waben)。“如果以国际或国家的角度来看，这些画并不是伦勃朗(Rembrandts)、杨·斯迪恩(Jan Steen)或维梅尔(Vermeer)的作品，它们是次一等级的作品，”格林丁克说。“但如果从地区或地域的角度来看，它们是无价之宝，因为并不是大同小异的油画，其中有自然景观、城市景观和海景，我们的博物馆想要讲述这一地区在黄金时代的故事，这些画在这个故事中非常重要。”

The money to recover the paintings was to be provided by the municipality of Hoorn, since the Westfries museum itself has an annual operating budget of just ㄠ80,000 and an annual acquisitions budget of ㄠ1,000.

赎回这批画作的钱将由霍伦自治市提供，因为西弗兰里博物馆的年度运营资金只有18万欧元，每年的收购资金只有1.1万欧元。

Museum officials and investigators involved in the case said that the works were probably not stolen by Ukrainians — the best guess at this point is that Dutch thieves were involved — and that they have probably changed hands a number of times in the past decade.

博物馆官员和相关调查者说，这些作品很可能不是乌克兰人偷的，最有可能的是同荷兰本土窃贼有关，之后，这些作品可能在过去十年里经历了一系列易手。

How they ended up in Ukraine is a matter of conjecture. Mr. Geerdink said the first indication that they might be there surfaced in 2014, when a Dutch police detective discovered a color image of one of the missing art works, “Rebecca and Eliezer,” by Linsen, on a Ukrainian website.

最后它们是如何来到乌克兰，仍然是个不确定的推测。格尔丁克说，可能在乌克兰的迹象于2004年首次浮出水面，当时荷兰警方在一个乌克兰网站发现一张彩色照片，上面是一张遗失的油画——林森的《丽贝卡与艾丽泽》(Rebecca and Eliezer)。

In response to the Westfries’ effort to publicize the case, the Ukrainian national police chief, Khatia Dekanoidze, said she was waiting for an official request from the Dutch prosecutor general’s office to begin to coordinate an investigation.

为了对西弗兰里博物馆将此事公之于众做出回应，乌克兰国家警察局局长卡蒂娅·德卡诺伊兹(Khatia Dekanoidze)说，她正在等待荷兰检察长办公室协助调查的请求。

“Our doors are open, we’re transparent and I hope that any kind of delegation from the state of Netherlands can arrive here,” she said in a videotaped statement on Friday.

“我们的大门是敞开的，我们是透明的，我希望任何来自荷兰的委托都可以送达这里，”她于周五在一份录像声明中说。

Olexander Horin, the Ukrainian ambassador to the Netherlands, criticized the museum and the Dutch authorities for meeting with Mr. Humeniuk without first contacting Ukrainian authorities.

乌克兰驻荷兰大使奥列克山大·霍林(Olexander Horin)批评这家博物馆及荷兰官方，未事先与乌克兰当局联系就同休莫尼乌克会面。

“We consider these talks, frankly speaking, inappropriate,” he said in a telephone interview on Monday. “This is a very sensitive issue and if you choose to go ahead and do this yourself, you have to bear the responsibility for the result. It’s like a kidnapping case, when the goals of the investigators and the parents are completely different.”

“坦率地说，我们认为这些会谈是不正当的，”他于周一在接受电话采访时说。“这是一个非常敏感的问题，如果你想自己处理，就得为后果承担责任。这有点像绑架案，调查者和父母的目标是不完全一致的。”

At this point, Mr. Horin said, the Ukrainian government is taking several steps, “first to locate the paintings, second to apprehend them, if these are the paintings they’re looking for, and the third and next step is the transfer of these paintings to the Dutch parties.”

霍林说，目前乌克兰政府正在采取若干步骤，“首先是给为油画进行地理定位，其次是抓获它们，如果这些油画是他们要找的，那么第三步以及接下来的步骤就是把这些画归还给荷兰。”

Ahmed Dadou, press secretary to the Dutch minister of foreign affairs, Bert Koenders, said on Monday in a telephone interview: “We are in close contact with the Ukrainians on the proceedings in this case, and the Ukrainians have assured us that they would investigate the case.”

荷兰外交部部长伯特·科恩达斯(Bert Koenders)的媒体秘书阿梅德·达杜(Ahmed Dadou)周一在接受电话采访时说：“在处理这一事件中，我们已经同乌克兰人密切合作，乌克兰方面向我们保证会调查此案。”

In the meantime, the Westfries Museum has re-hung many of the empty frames of the paintings in the museum’s upstairs galleries.

与此同时，西弗兰里博物馆在博物馆楼上的画廊里重新挂上了那些空荡荡的画框。

“Our fear is that maybe at this moment some of the paintings have already been sold,” Mr. Geerdink said. “We hung up the empty frames in the museum as a sign of protest and also as a sign of hope that within a year we’ll be able to recover them.”

“我们的担心是，目前已经有些油画被卖出去了，”格尔丁克说。“我们挂上空画框，既是为了表示抗议，也是希望一年之内我们能够赎回它们。”