Berne - The disappearance of a painting by Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler on its way to an exhibition in the capital Berne is being treated as yet another major art theft in Switzerland by police. The picture was collected by a transportation company but never arrived at its destination, said exhibition organizer Matthias Frehner.
Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) is widely regarded as Switzerland's national painter, famous for works such as "The Lumberjack" and "William Tell."
The exhibition, entitled "A Symbolic Vision" running until August 10, is a collection of the artist's works and is on display at the Berne Museum of Fine Arts.
It follows the spectacular daylight robbery from a the Emil Buehrle private art collection in Zurich in February.
Armed thieves then escaped with four pictures worth 180 million francs (163 million dollars). Two, Monet's Champ de Coquelicots Près de Vétheuil 1879, and Edgar Degas' Ludovic Lepic et Ses Filles 1871 were discovered afew days later in an abandoned car in the city.
Branches de Marronier en Fleurs 1890 by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne's L'Enfant dans une Veste Rouge 1888/1890 are still missing.
In a separate robbery, few days earlier, two Picassos, on loan from Germany, worth an estimated 4 million francs were stolen from an exhibition at Pfaeffikon not far from Zurich.
