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Swiss police recover masterpieces

Lukas Gloor, director of the E.G. Buehrle Collection museum, smiles in front of two recovered paintings in Zurich, Switzerland, on Tuesday. The two Impressionist paintings stolen in one of Europe's largest art thefts were recovered in an abandoned car, Swiss police said on Tuesday. PHOTO: AP

Swiss police said on Tuesday they have recovered two stolen paintings -- one Monet and a Van Gogh -- in the car park of a Zurich psychiatric hospital, but two others are still missing after a daring heist.

The two paintings, estimated to be worth 70 million Swiss francs (US$64 million), were recovered on Monday on the back seat of a car parked at the hospital, Zurich police said in a statement.

They are in a good condition with their glass covering still intact.

Poppies near Vetheuil (1879) by Claude Monet and Blossoming Chestnut Branch (1890) by Vincent van Gogh were formally identified by the director of the Buehrle Museum from where they were stolen, the police said.

They are still searching for the other two paintings -- Count Lepic and his Daughters by Edgar Degas (1871) and Boy in a Red Waistcoat by Paul Cezanne (1888) -- taken at the same time.

An employee of the psychiatric hospital alerted police to the white car left in the car park. It had Zurich number plates but these turned out to have been stolen from another vehicle earlier in the month, the police said.

The theft from Zurich's Emil Buehrle museum was one of the largest art robberies carried out in Europe in the last two decades.

The four stolen Impressionist masterpieces had a joint worth of SF180 million.

Three masked men entered the museum on Feb. 10 and threatened staff with a pistol before making off in a car.

The museum had offered a reward of SF100,000 for any information leading to the paintings' return.

Police commander Philipp Hotzenkoecherle said the employee of the psychiatric institution who raised the alarm about the car would receive a part of this reward.

The police had received a large amount of information from both Switzerland and abroad regarding the theft, he added without giving any further details.

Museum director Lukas Gloor on Tuesday welcomed the two paintings' return.

"It's a huge relief, and a great piece of luck to find these two paintings in a good condition," he said.

The Monet and van Gogh works are the largest of the four stolen paintings, he said, adding it seemed that the thieves were not aware of quite how prestigious their haul was.

"We have good hopes of retrieving the other two" paintings, he said.

The Buehrle museum was founded by German-born magnate Emil Buehrle, who made his fortune with the Oerlikon-Buehrle munitions factory in Zurich, which sold arms to both sides in World War II.

He began collecting art in the 1930s but made most of his purchases of key Impressionist works in the post-war period, buying about three quarters of his collection between 1951 and 1956 from leading art dealers worldwide.

The museum opened in 1960 and holds more than 200 paintings including seven each by Van Gogh and Cezanne, six by Degas and five by Monet, according to its Web site.

It also features works by other Impressionists and early Modernist painters like Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso and Chagall, as well as medieval sculptures, Gothic altarpieces and Old Masters.

Switzerland has seen a spate of art thefts in recent weeks, including two paintings by Pablo Picasso worth US$4.5 million stolen earlier this month from a cultural center in the town of Pfaeffikon.

The Picasso paintings have yet to be recovered.
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