Recap: Zurich's Art Theft Prompts `Naïve' Museums to Review Security, Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

This is a handout of the Buehrle Foundation museum in Zurich, Switzerland, released to the media on Feb. 12, 2008. Source: Adrian Michael via Bloomberg News

According to Bloomberg.com for Zurich art fan Marlis Lindenmann, the charm of the Foundation E.G. Buehrle Collection was in the intimacy of its 19th-century villa in the Seefeld district.

That may be gone after three armed assailants in ski masks stole four paintings from the museum on Feb. 10. The haul, estimated at $163 million, was Switzerland's biggest art theft and the second in the region in a week.

``I heard about it on the radio,'' Lindenmann, a 66-year-old retired teacher who was born and grew up in Zurich, said in an interview outside Kunsthaus, the city's main fine art museum. ``I thought, that can't be true! It's an uncomfortable thought that it was during visiting hours. Perhaps we were a bit naïve.''

The robberies have shocked the city of 375,000 and prompted security reviews at private collections. Two Pablo Picasso oil paintings belonging to the Sprengel Museum in Germany were stolen from an exhibition in Pfaeffikon, near Zurich, on Feb. 6.

``It's the job of museums to show art, not lock it up,'' said Bjoern Quellenberg, a spokesman for the Kunsthaus, who was 500 meters (1,640 feet) away at his Seefeld home when he heard about the theft. ``But it's getting more difficult.''

While Zurich's Kunsthaus doesn't plan to boost security again, smaller buildings are more at risk, said Quellenberg.

Caroline Junier, director of the museum of fine arts in Neuchatel, said she contacted a local bank to check how they are prepared for attacks. The bank gave her the address of a private security firm, which will come to the museum to teach staff to protect themselves and the art.

Van Gogh, Degas

Apart from Cezanne's ``The Boy in the Red Vest,'' the key piece of the collection, the theft on Sunday included Monet's ``Poppies Near Vetheuil,'' Degas's ``Count Lepic and his Daughters'' and Van Gogh's ``Blossoming Chestnut Branches.''

The weight of the framed paintings probably stopped the robbers taking more of the museum's 200 works, Lukas Gloor, director of the museum, said at a press conference. He said the museum was ``powerless'' against an armed robbery.

Gloor didn't reply to e-mailed questions asking what the museum was planning to reinforce security. The exhibit is currently closed to visitors.

``The timing of the two robberies gives the impression that security measures at Swiss museums are bad, but it's not the case at all,'' said David Vuillaume, secretary of the Association of Swiss Museums, which represents some 800 of the country's 1,000 museums. ``Very little can be done when somebody holds a gun next to your head.''

Emil Buehrle

The association sent an e-mail this week to its members, reminding them to be ``extremely vigilant.''

The E.G. Buehrle collection is housed next to the former home of Emil Buehrle, a German-born industrialist who took over Swiss machinery maker Oerlikon, Buehrle & Co., and made it into an arms exporter in the early 1940s.

Buehrle started buying paintings when he acquired a large house in Zurich's Zollikerstrasse. During World War II, he bought about 100 paintings, 13 of which later turned out were brought to Switzerland illegally, according to a release by the foundation. He purchased nine of them a second time after legal battles over their return.

The collection will move to Zurich's Kunsthaus in 2015, when that museum expects to complete construction of a new building. Even that may not prevent future heists.

``What Switzerland does suffer from is foreign teams of criminals coming in, hitting them and making off with the booty,'' said Dick Ellis, a London-based art-crime consultant who used to head Scotland Yard's art squad. ``It's not only because the Swiss have rich pickings and are attractive targets, but they're landlocked and for criminals around Europe it's easy to cross the borders.''