Robbers snatch paintings worth over $160 mn in Switzerland

Zurich, Feb 11 (DPA) Impressionist works worth an estimated 180 million Swiss francs ($163 million) were stolen from the celebrated Emil Buehrle collection in Zurich, Swiss police confirmed Monday.There were still visitors at the Emil Buehrle collection Sunday afternoon when three masked men burst in. One held staff and visitors at gunpoint on the ground while the other two removed the four paintings from the wall in a gallery on the ground floor.


The alarm was triggered but they swiftly escaped in a white car, police told a press conference. A spokesman said such robberies normally took place at night.


They took works by Claude Monet (Champ de Coquelicots Près de Vétheuil 1879), Edgar Degas (Ludovic Lepic et Ses Filles 1871), Vincent van Gogh (Branches de Marronier en Fleurs 1890), and Paul Cézanne (L'Enfant dans une Veste Rouge 1888/1890).


They were among the works collected by the German industrialist Emil Buehrle (1890-1956).


The collection is described as one of the most important 20th century private collections of European art, with French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism at its heart.


The stolen works were on permanent display in the villa adjacent to Buehrle's former mansion as part of the Foundation set up by his family and opened to the public in 1960.


As well as buying art he donated a new wing to Zurich's Kunsthaus in the 50's to which his family later transferred some of the collection.


Sunday's theft came just four days after two Picassos worth an estimated 4 million dollars were stolen from an exhibition at Pfäffikon not far from Zurich in central Switzerland.