JETTE - A showpiece our greatest painter, Rene Magritte, Magritte was stolen from the museum in Jette. A cleaning woman opened the door to the armed art thieves. Top of surrealism: it was a distant descendant of Magritte's wife, appearing on the stolen canvas.

At the time of the theft, for ten hours in the morning, were in the small René Magritte Museum in Jette only two Japanese tourists, two staff and the cleaning lady. The latter initially noticed anything suspicious to the Asian thief. Even when he asked: "Is this really the Magritte Museum?"

When the man was once inside, it went fast. He held his gun against the temple, the cleaning woman, brutally chased the others into the garden and let slip his companion.

The duo, dressed in wig and cap, the museum had clearly already visited and minutely examined and decompose, like real pros. Hang seven other paintings in the museum, but the thieves had only one eye to canvas: Olympia (1948), one of Magritte's most valuable works.

In two, three minutes the job was done. From the front of the painting was barely six, seven meters. The thieves just encountered two obstacles: a glass screen door and a security system for the beam. As if nothing had jumped from a skillful thieves on the screen. Then he circumvent the alarm system professionally.

In all, the context and fabric of the wall removed and preserved. The thieves struck on foot to flee. Perhaps they were on the corner of the street picked up by a getaway car. Even during the robbery one of the staff alerted the police. That was five minutes later there, but the birds were flying.

Olympia is estimated at least 750,000 euros. The oil painting from 1948 suggests a naked woman with a shell and was only in 1980 for the first time shown to the outside world. The painting measures about 60 by 80 inches and is considered unsaleable.

As to the robbery of the surreal in the paint to put, say sources in the police that the cleaning woman opened the door for thieves, a distant descendant of Georgette Magritte's wife. And even more striking: the stolen painting is a portrait of Georgette same.

Assistant Curator Marthe Lemmens moved quickly yesterday to secure the museum in question. "There are special locks on windows and doors and at night there is an active alarm system. But this is still a small museum, anyway easier to rob than the big Magritte Museum in Brussels..' We then security must adapt.  It must have been a slip of the tongue, because not much later it was all negated by the curator himself.

The Magritte Museum is housed in the house where the artist between 1930 and 1954 half of his painted work together. Today the museum would open again. The police had last night mean that there may have been traces found during the site study.