Priceless paintings in Swiss art heist found: reports

18.02.2008 21:01 Arts - Source: cbc.ca

Paintings stolen in one of Europe's largest art thefts have been discovered in a parking lot in front of a psychiatric hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, according to local media.

The area around the Psychiatric University Clinic was closed off Monday evening and Zurich police spokeswoman Judith Hoedl said that a suspicious vehicle had been found.

She did not divulge whether it was connected with the Feb. 10 robbery from a Zurich museum in which works worth $163 million US were stolen.

The clinic is only a few hundred metres from the museum.

On Feb. 10, a trio of armed and masked men ran into the museum half an hour before the facility was set to close and threatened staffers.

They snatched four paintings by Paul Czanne, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet.

Some experts have suggested organized criminal gangs are behind the heist as the value of works of art at auctions climb.

Local TV station TeleZuri quoted a witness as saying that the car contained three paintings bearing the name of the museum. Among the pictures was Claude Monet's Poppy field at Vetheuil, the witness said.

Radio station Radio 24 also reported that the building supervisor at the hospital found the paintings in an unlocked car.

The area was cordoned off by police who towed a white mid-sized sedan away.

Other pictures stolen were Degas' Ludovic Lepic and his Daughter, van Gogh's Blooming Chestnut Branches and Czanne's Boy in the Red Waistcoat.

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