Robbers brandishing handguns stole four paintings by 19th-century masters worth €112 million from a Zurich museum in Switzerland's biggest art theft, police said today.
Oil paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet were stolen in daylight yesterday from the private Buehrle Collection in the second art theft in the area within days.
In yesterday's robbery, three men in dark clothing and masks, one of whom spoke German with a Slavic accent, forced their way into the museum and made off with the paintings in a white car.
Police said a reward of 100,000 Swiss francs (almost €62,500) was on offer for information leading to their arrest.
The four paintings stolen were Cezanne 's The Boy in the Red Vestfrom 1890, Degas's Viscount Lepic and His Daughtersfrom 1871, Monet's Poppies Near Vetheuilfrom 1880 and Van Gogh's Blossoming Chestnut Branchesfrom 1890.
The building holding the collection of E. G. Buehrle, in Zurich, where the robbery took place
Police raised the value of the paintings to 180 million Swiss francs (€112.4 million) after initially saying the paintings were valued at 100 million francs (€62.4 million)
Yesterday's theft occurred at the impressionist collection amassed by the late Swiss industrialist Emil Buehrle. He was a controversial figure who sold anti-aircraft guns to Nazi Germany during World War Two.
The stolen Picassos, which are valued in media reports at around €3.1 million, were on loan from the Sprengel Museum in Hannover.
The robbery in Switzerland's financial capital followed the theft of two Picasso paintings, Tete de Cheval, from 1962, and Verre et Pichet, from 1944, from a nearby cultural centre last week.