Car examined over Zurich art robbery

Swiss police are examining a car that may contain paintings taken in an art heist last week.

Swiss police are examining a car that may contain paintings taken in an art heist last week.

Swiss police officers inspect a car parked near the Burghoelzli Psychiatric clinic in Zurich
Swiss police officers inspect a car parked near the Burghoelzli Psychiatric clinic in Zurich

The car is in Zurich University's psychiatric clinic, a few hundred metres from the private Buehrle Collection, where oil paintings worth €163 million by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet were stolen on February 10th.

The gallery had offered a €62,000 reward for the recovery of four paintings worth €113 million stolen by masked gunmen.

The four oil paintings were snatched on a Sunday afternoon in a three-minute raid. Three men wearing ski masks and dark clothes burst into the museum shortly before 4.30pm, waving pistols.

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One man ordered visitors and employees on to the ground while the other two headed into a ground-floor hall. They removed four works from the walls and escaped in a white car.

The four paintings stolen were: Monet's Poppies Near Vetheuil(1880); Cézanne's Boy in the Red Vest(1890); Degas's Viscount Lepic and his Daughters(1871); and Van Gogh's Blossoming Chestnut Branches(1890).