At around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, 10 February 2008, three thieves wearing dark clothing and ski masks entered the E. G. Bührle Collection on the shores of Lake Zurich in Switzerland, shortly before the facility was due to close for the day. While one thief ordered visitors and staff, at gunpoint, to lay on the floor, the other two quickly stripped four side-by-side Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from a wall in the music room. Law enforcement officials speculated that these canvases were not stolen "to order," due to the fact that they were hanging together when taken, and also because more valuable works are on display elsewhere in the Collection.
INTERPOL officially announced on 21 February 2008 that two of the stolen paintings were recovered on 18 February. Claude Monet's Poppies near Vétheuil (ca. 1880) and Vincent van Gogh's Blossoming Chestnut Branches (1890) were discovered in the back seat of a white Opel Omega parked in a lot in front of the Burghölzli, Zurich University's psychiatric clinic — only about 2,300 feet away from the Bührle Collection villa. Both works were undamaged.
Weird story, isn't it?
Poppy Field near Vetheuil
oil on canvas • 71.5 x 91.5 cm