A Van Gogh painting stolen from a Dutch museum in March 2020 is back in safe hands after a three-and-a-half-year quest to recover it.

Dutch art detective Arthur Brand said he had been handed the 139-year-old painting in a pillow and an Ikea bag by a man who came to his front door.

“I did this in complete co-ordination with Dutch police and we knew this guy wasn’t involved in the theft,” he said.

In 2021, a career criminal was jailed for eight years over the incident.

But by then the painting, worth several million euros, had already changed hands.