Van Gogh, Monet paintings in Swiss art heist found

Two Impressionist paintings stolen in one of Europe's largest art thefts have been recovered in an abandoned car, left in front of a psychiatric hospital in Zurich, Switzerland.

Police say the recovered paintings by Vincent van Gogh's Blooming Chestnut Branches and Claude Monet's Poppy field at Vetheuil were among four stolen from a private museum in a Feb. 10 armed robbery.

The area around the Psychiatric University Clinic was closed off Monday evening and Zurich police would only say that a suspicious vehicle had been found.

The clinic is only a few hundred metres from the museum.

The two other paintings taken from the E.G. Buehrle Collection Edgar Degas' Ludovic Lepic and his DaughterandPaul Cezanne's Boy in the Red Waistcoat are still missing. The total value of all four paintings is estimated at $163 million US.

Philipp Hotzenkoecherle, commander of Zurich city police, says they don't know how long the white sedan with the painting inside had been parked there.

The paintings were in good condition and still under the glass behind which they were displayed in the museum, he said.

On Feb. 10,a trio of armed and masked men ran into the museum half an hour before the facility was set to close. They threatened staffers andsnatched the four paintings.

Some experts have suggested organized criminal gangs are behind the heist as the value of works of artat auctions climb.