Marcel van Eeden's (1965) series The Stolen Pictures deals with the subject of a robbery of masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The story is an extension of van Eeden's project Zigmund's Machine and The Rijnbar. A sinister figure is looking for the ultimate source of energy, a life force to gain great power with. Van Eeden is inspired by the work Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung / The World As Will And Representation (1819) by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). Initially, in Marcel's story, the figure wants to extract this power, or will, from living organisms, but when it turns out that the cacti of the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam are not sufficient, he turns to the masterpieces of the Rijksmuseum. The extraction of Will from the paintings of Rembrandt and Van Ruisdael would create the ultimate source of the energy that he is looking for. The related large format drawings with compressed charcoal on canvas show the scene of the crime: the Rijksmuseum and the adjacent buildings in Amsterdam.