Armed robbers took an estimated $163 million worth of art from the E. G. Bührle Collection on the shore of Lake Zurich, in Switzerland, yesterday (February 10, 2008). Now, despite the fact that 640 other media outlets have already rehashed the same three points ad nauseam, I'd like to think that I can add to this criminal conversation.

(1) The Bührle Collection should have had much greater press mention before this disaster, if only for the absolutely splendid online offerings it has made available to anyone with an Internet connection. This has been a boon for art history researchers in recent years. So it's not crucially important, right this minute, to go into speculating exactly how Swiss munitions manufacturer Emil Bührle (1890-1956) became wealthy enough during WWII to amass this collection.

(2) The Collection holds four canvases (two of which are early works) by Pablo Picasso, but none of them are hung in the Music Room and, hence, none were taken. I would like to tell you that this is a refreshing change from the recent string of Picasso thefts but, unfortunately, there is nothing "refreshing" about tearing paintings from a wall and stealing them. Ever. Which brings me to my third point...

(3) Whatever happened to the "Thou shalt not steal" clause in life? Are we not teaching this basic tenet of polite society to our children any longer? You know, every time I read about someone, like, 50 times a day, brandishing a pistol and taking things that don't belong to him, I sincerely want to seek out his Inner Child and kick its narrow behind from here to breakfast. Call me Sergeant Mean Mom.

You, too? Soak up the image gallery of stolen works and keep a weather eye out. There is currently $91K in reward money floating up for grabs. Solving a crime is not dishonest. Doing so *should* be rewarded. I'm just saying.

UPDATE: (February 21, 2008) INTERPOL officially announced today that two of the stolen paintings were recovered on February 18. 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--about 2,300 feet away from the Bührle Collection villa. Both works were undamaged. The Cézanne and Degas canvases remain missing.

Image credit:

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906)
The Boy in the Red Vest, 1894-95
Oil on canvas
80 x 64.5 cm (31 1/2 x 25 3/8 in.)
© E. G. Bührle Collection, Zurich