Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings

10. Vincent Van Gogh - "Portrait de 'artiste sans barbe", 1889
Price paid: $90.7 Million



9. Gustav Klimt - "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Baur II", 1912
Price paid: $93.1 Million



8. Pablo Picasso - "Dora Maar au Chat", 1941
Price paid: $100.8 Million

7. Vincent Van Gogh - "Irises", 1889
Price Paid: $102.3 Million

6. Pablo Picasso - "Garcon a la pipe", 1905
Price paid: $114.8 Million



5. Pierre-Auguste Renoir - "Bal au Moulin de la Galette, Montmarte", 1876
Price paid: $128.8 Million



4. Vincent Van Gogh - "Portrait of Dr. Gachet", 1890
Price paid: $136.1 million

3. Gustav Klimt - "Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer I", 1907
Price paid: $143.5 Million

2. Williem do Kooning - "Woman III", 1953
Price paid: $145.7 Million

1. Jackson Pollock - "No. 5, 1948", 1948
Price paid: $147.8 Million

Recession hits Art Market

The world wide art market is being hard hit by the American recession and global economic slowdown. How? Artworks at auction are going unsold.

Where just a year ago we were seeing record prices for Andy Warhol's and Vincent Van Gogh's, now paintings and sculptures are sitting on the auction block with no bids whatsoever.

The Canadian art auction market for example celebrated 12 years of growth, eclipsing $71 million in sales over 2007-2008, its largest ever.

At the end of 2008 however the money has dried up. The collapse of the housing sector, the financial markets, the automotive sector and other industries has caused investors to grip their money more firmly. Invest in art? Ha!

In London and New York, fall auctions have severely underperformed, leaving major works unsold or greatly underpriced that American collector Eli Broad even jokingly called it a "half-price sale."

At the modern and impressionist art auctions in New York on November 3rd and 4th works from Monet, Matisse, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Warhol and Rothko, were left unsold. Sotheby's had estimated a low of $338 million (U.S.) in sales, but had only $223.8 million.

So what does this mean for living artists and private art galleries? Well if the art investors are tightening their belts, it suggests that regular art buyers will do the same too and art sales will plummet. We can expect to see quite a few privately owned art galleries lose their collective shirts and close.

Its hard enough for art galleries to survive as is. Its not exactly a business known for profits.

Jackson Pollock for sale in Toronto

Abstract Expressionism - It was a thrift-shop find for $5 and now it's being put up for sale in Toronto with a price tag of $50 million.

A painting by Jackson Pollock will be on display this month at a small, east-end gallery, with its American owner, Teri Horton, seeking a Canadian buyer.

The retired trucker, who found the painting some 15 years ago in San Bernardino, California, says she's been so badly treated by the U.S. art market - which has refused to acknowledge its forensic authentication (Jackson Pollock's fingerprints in the paint) - that she wants a Canadian to buy the colourful abstract canvas.

"For a long time I'd been wanting this painting out of the U.S.A. because they don't deserve the painting," Horton said Tuesday.

"This is the 21st century - the century of science.... They don't want science into art authentication because it's going to expose all the corruption within the U.S.A. art market."

Horton has entrusted the Pollock painting, measuring 1.7-by-1.2 metres and featuring navy, off-white, black, red and yellow paint, to Gallery Delisle in eastern Toronto.

Owner Michelle Delisle says she reached out to Horton after seeing the documentary, "Who the $%& is Jackson Pollock?" in which the gravel-voiced Horton discovers she may have a masterwork on her hands, but comes up against an established art market that refuses to acknowledge evidence provided by a Montreal forensic expert.

Believing the painting to be a real Pollock, Delisle contacted Horton last month and now the painting will be on display at the gallery for two weeks beginning Nov. 13, with private viewings available by appointment from Nov. 1.

"The person that buys this painting is laughing after this because as soon as it's purchased it'll be validated," said Delisle.

"A painting's value is the last price paid, so if this person was to then turn around five years later and bring it to Christie's or Sotheby's (they could do well). The last Pollock that came up to market went for $140 million...and this is a little bit smaller but not a lot. A $50-million price tag is very fair. It's very fair."

Horton says she's had offers to buy the painting in the past, but at $2 million and $9 million bids, they fell far below what she feels it's worth. Bidders with even higher offers were ultimately scared off by New York art advisers who consistently counseled against the purchase, she adds.

Canadian art observers doubt Horton will get her price in Canada, given that serious collectors in Canada tend to favour homegrown artists and that few have the bankroll to meet the steep asking price.

Tory government scraps Portrait Gallery

CANADA - After seven years of planning and several million dollars of public investment, the Conservative government has scrapped a project to open a national portrait gallery, Heritage Minister James Moore said late Friday.

"In this time of global economic instability, it is important that the federal government continue to manage its own affairs prudently and pragmatically," he said in a press release.

Moore, who was appointed to the Heritage Ministry last month, also blamed the cancellation on a dearth of feasible submissions made by developers.

(Right and Below: Portraits by Canadian artist Charles Moffat)

"A number of developers submitted proposals to house the public programming and exhibitions of the Portrait Gallery of Canada," he said.

"Unfortunately, none of these proposals met the government's requirements, and we are therefore terminating the selection process."

The cancellation comes a day after Moore, 32, told reporters that he hoped to "build bridges" with the arts community in his new posting.

Relations with Canada's arts groups were strained after the Harper government announced $45 million in culture cuts earlier this year.

In 2001, the Liberal government announced it would open the Portrait Gallery of Canada by 2005, however, the project has hit several snags.

Initially, the gallery - which was to feature 20,000 paintings and prints along with millions of photos and other examples of Canadian art history - was to open in the former American embassy, which sits across from Parliament in Ottawa.

In fact, the government has already spent more than $10 million in repairing that building in preparation for the gallery.

The entire projected cost was initially $22 million, but that number later swelled to $45 million, and the opening was pushed back to 2007.

Meanwhile, the Conservative government reviewed the project after it came into power in 2006.

A year ago, the Conservatives announced that several major Canadian cities should bid for the gallery - a move which was slammed by critics who wanted the gallery in Ottawa.

After last May's deadline for submissions, three cities were in the running: Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa.

Alberta's government had even promised to pump $40 in provincial cash into a bid.

The government, meanwhile, stated that the portrait collection, which is stored in special facility in Gatineau, Que., "will continue to be available for viewing by Canadians through travelling exhibitions and other public programs."

Artists Remember the names of Canada's Fallen

ART HISTORY - When the sun sets over the British capital tomorrow night, an ambitious act of remembrance begins when the first name is projected against the walls of Canada House in Trafalgar Square. One after another, the names of each Canadian to fall in World War I will follow.

As the sun moves westward to Canada, the names will go with it, projected against buildings in six cities, including Toronto City Hall. The sequence continues with 9,700 names per night spread across 13-hour, sunset-to-sunrise vigils until the last name appears at the break of dawn on Nov. 11.

Three years in the making, Vigil: 1914-1918 is the brainchild of Canadian actor/director R.H. Thomson and his co-creator, lighting designer Martin Conboy, a labour of deep respect that has taken on a life of its own.

The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, moved by the poignancy of the idea, now have confirmed their attendance at tomorrow's London launch. Public vigils are also to take place in Fredericton, Halifax, Regina and Edmonton, besides the National War Memorial in Ottawa.

As an aid to remembrance, a searchable website has been created – www.1914-1918.ca – to enable the families of Canada's war dead to mark the precise moment of their ancestor's turn in the passage of names, 90 years after the devastating war was brought to an end.

"This was the war that cost Europe its reputation as civilized. The war where Canadian families were forbidden from repatriating the bodies of their war dead, however much they wanted to," Thomson told the Star.

"So what we want to say to people is, `Watch. Watch these names move. This is the final march. The final roll.' "

For Thomson, it is personal. He lost seven great-uncles to war, including four of five brothers who fought with the Canadian Expeditionary Force under British and Allied command in WWI. That toll formed the basis for Thomson's 2001 solo show, The Lost Boys.

Growing up in the shadows of such loss, Thomson says he has always been mindful of the "unearthed stories in the attics of so many Canadian families."

Thomson knew his own stories: how two of the brothers fell in the battlefields of Europe and how two more made it home, only to die in a sanatorium from the effects of gas poisoning. And how the fifth brother – "Uncle Art"– wandered through a subsequent life of adventure, from Africa to Egypt to northern Ontario, occasionally showing up at Christmas to teach his great-nephew how to play poker.

For a span of three years, Thomson and his collaborator Conboy have been amassing stories from other Canadian families to better understand what Thomson calls "the enduring slipstream of war."

"As artists, we are trying to present Vigil as a piece of social history. To say directly to Canadian families that we understand that when there is war it doesn't just stop at a certain date. There is this turbulence that goes on for generations," said Thomson.

"I spoke to hundreds of families, hearing stories of men screaming in their beds in the middle of the night, still fighting the war for years after the fact.

"I spoke to a man in his 90s who broke down and cried to me on the phone – cried to a complete stranger– as he told of his father's war. Another man told me that every time his father swore, he spoke out his service number from the war."

Thomson recognizes that where art intersects with remembrance the terrain can sometimes be tricky. At tomorrow's ceremony in London, for example, the Queen will meet a number of Canadian veterans, including some recently returned from Afghanistan.

"What we are doing is not anti-war statement nor a pro-war statement. For me, I have no difficulty thinking about these things in dimension; one can look skeptically at military action as a means of diplomacy and at the same time have complete and total respect for the men and women who are actually there," he said.

"I'm doing this more as a Canadian, rather than as an artist," says Thomson.

"What really struck us in preparing for this is how many families hold the last pieces of this war in their memories. But the memory is fading as people near the ends of their lives.

"So what happens after that? What happens in that moment in our country's history when the memory fades forever? My response would be: mark it. Do something unique, so that you will always remember that moment when it evaporated."

Rotting Onions = Art

ART HISTORY - One man's stink is another man's major art project.

A piece by Belgian conceptual artist Jan Fabre at the Antwerp's Muhka contemporary art museum is challenging the nose as well as the eyes.

The installation "Spring is on its way" consists of onions and potatoes hung from the ceiling in condoms. And the vegetables are, well, spoiling.

"Like many of his works, it is about transformation and metamorphosis," Muhka's Kathleen Weyts said of Fabre, who had a solo show at the Paris Louvre earlier this year.

Weyts claimed that one museum worker complained. Local media reported that plenty of visitors and museum guards were protesting. By Monday, the smelly, rotting onions and potatoes were the talk of the town.

"Protest Against Fabre's Stink Art," headlined Het Nieuwsblad newspaper.

"Fabre's stinking work raises tempers," the VRT television network said on its website.

Some shoots have broken through the condoms and other condoms have crashed to the ground from the weight of the vegetables.

"It smells of onions but I would not call it a stink," Muhka director Bart De Baere told VRT.

The museum has no plans to remove Fabre's installation, which runs until the start of spring 2009, but it is removing any vegetables that hit the ground.

Eight years ago, Fabre covered some university pillars in Ghent in ham. Sure enough, after a while, the complaints came.

"Fabre always says that art must be a bit smelly," said Weyts.

Daphne Odjig Honoured in Canada

Daphne Odjig `one of Canada's finest living artists,' and her life's work is now on display in Kleinburg

At 89, with a retrospective of her work on display at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Daphne Odjig is not bothered by lofty descriptions of her art as having Cubist and Surrealist influences.

"It doesn't bother me. If that's what they (art critics) want to write about, that's fine. I still go ahead and do my own thing," said Odjig, whose exhibit at the Kleinburg gallery is on display until Jan. 4.

The native artist does admit to being a little surprised by all the fuss, which includes an Order of Canada, seven honorary doctorates and a 2007 Governor General's Award in Visual Arts.

"I am (surprised) because I didn't have the encouragement or the promotion years ago because they (critics) said it was ethno-graphic. But I didn't give a damn, I just kept painting the way I wanted to," Daphne Odjig added.

McMichael executive director and CEO Tom Smart called Daphne Odjig "one of Canada's finest living artists."

"She is able to also tell her stories and uses a particular, unique style. She also brings in European modes of representation, particularly Cubism. So she marries different styles and different modes and different traditions," Smart said.

As a child growing up in the village of Wikwemikong on Manitoulin Island, Odjig's interest in art was sparked by her grandfather, Jonas, a tombstone carver who also liked to sketch.

"My companion was my grandfather so I followed him around. I was just like a little shadow. I mimicked everything he did. So I would sit with him on the porch and sketch. And it all starts from there," she said.

With no formal training – "I never went to art school" – Odjig said she has gotten her inspiration over the many decades from visiting art galleries, from people she's met, from omnipresent nature and from extensive travel. "All artists should travel. I love being with people and I love the environment. You draw your inspiration from anything, from everywhere, from many people," she said.

Daphne Odjig said her native background is also a major influence on her work, despite a childhood in which her Ojibway heritage was suppressed.

"I grew up not being able to dance or to know the sweetgrass ceremony and other things because that was forbidden by the church at the time. It was still underground," she said.

But Odjig is optimistic that native culture is alive and well and in no danger of disappearing in a Western-dominated society.

"The native psyche is very strong and we'll always be here. A native person, if he's given the chance, he can prove himself. I don't think our culture will be lost," she said.

Odjig, who lives in Penticton, B.C., said nature is so important to her she takes a break from her art during the summer.

"I love birds. I love my swallows. In the summertime, I don't paint, I'm too busy learning about nature, all about nature. I'm feeding my birds," Odjig said.

As an ardent environmentalist, Daphne Odjig said she is dismayed to see the effects of man-made activity that have "upset the whole balance of nature."

Smart said Odjig's concern for the environment and her representation of it through her drawings and paintings makes her exhibit "a very timely and contemporary story."

New technique for seeing hidden paintings

A team of European scientists unveiled a new method for extracting images hidden under Old Masters' paintings yesterday, re-creating a colour portrait of a woman's face unseen since Vincent van Gogh painted over it in 1887.

For years, art historians have been using X-rays to probe artworks hidden under other paintings, a technique resulting in a fuzzy, black-and-white image. But Joris Dik, a materials scientist from Delft University, and Koen Janssens, a chemist from the University of Antwerp in Belgium, combined science and art to engineer a new method of visualizing hidden paintings, using high-intensity X-rays and an intimate knowledge of old pigments.

The pair used the new approach on Patch of Grass, a small oil study of a field that van Gogh painted in Paris while living with his brother Theo, who supported him.

While not exact in every detail, the image produced is a woman's head that may be the same model van Gogh painted in a series of portraits leading up to the 1885 masterpiece The Potato Eaters.

The new method will allow art historians to obtain higher quality and more detailed images underlying old masterpieces. In Van Gogh's case, it could reveal details of works that were painted over. For other works, it could provide new insights into the studies that the artist built a painting on.

Painting by Winston Churchill for auction

I like Winston Churchill. He was overall my kind of leader. But apparently he also painted, and wasn't bad at either. A painting by Winston Churchill of a Moroccan sunset – a view he loved so much that he invited President Franklin D. Roosevelt to see it years later – is going on the auction block next week.

Sunset Over the Atlas Mountains, a vibrant landscape painted in 1935 from Churchill's balcony at the Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech, is expected to bring at least $600,000 (dollar figures U.S.) at Bonhams New York on April 23.

Churchill invited Roosevelt to travel with him to Marrakech after a conference in Casablanca in 1943 so he could experience the beautiful view for himself.

After Churchill's death in 1965, the 20-by-24-inch oil went to a daughter, Lady Sarah Audley, who sold it to a private collector in Texas, who in turn sold it in 1992 to the family of the current San Francisco owner, whose name Bonhams did not disclose.

Malcolm Walker, European paintings specialist at Bonhams, said the value of Churchill's paintings has skyrocketed in the past year and a half. "He was as good as an amateur artist will get," he said.

Churchill, who began painting for relaxation and loved working in brilliant colors, often did not sign his work so as not to influence judges, Walker said. Sunset Over the Atlas Mountains is not signed.

Walker said Churchill loved Morocco, which he visited often.

Marrakech, a work depicting the city's gates against the backdrop of the Atlas mountains, was painted by Churchill in 1948 and presented to President Truman in 1951. It sold at auction for $949,918 in December 2007. Earlier that year his painting Chartwell Landscape with Sheep sold for $2.06 million – a record for the artist & politician.

Killer's art for auction

The prison artwork of a notorious Canadian killer is being offered for sale on an American website that promotes criminals as celebrities.

More than half a dozen items produced by cult killer Roch Theriault at the Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick are up for auction on MurderAuction.com, which specializes in so-called "murderabilia."

Collectors can bid for oil paintings, pastels, signed handprints and even short poems written out and coloured by Theriault, who's serving a life sentence after being convicted of a brutal murder in 1993.

The charismatic leader of a tiny religious group near Burnt River, Ont., between 1977 and 1989, Theriault chopped off the hand of one of his concubines and killed his wife by disembowelling her.

A television movie about his bizarre cult, which was modelled on Old Testament themes and attracted up to a dozen adult followers, was titled Savage Messiah. It was broadcast in 2002, the same year the National Parole Board turned down his first bid for day parole.

"Cult leader Roch Theriault is one of the craziest and sickest criminal(s) in Canadian history," the anonymous Canadian-based seller of the artwork – identified only as Redrum's Autographs – declares on the website.

"Theriault's artwork is extremely rare as he doesn't write to anyone but family."

The art being auctioned is abstract or contains inoffensive images such as flowers, and dates from October and November 2007. Minimum bids range from $20 to $500 (U.S.).

The three-year-old website is one of the earliest to create a specialized marketplace for crime memorabilia, which has generally been banned from mainstream sites such as eBay.

MurderAuction.com founder Tod Bohannon makes no apologies, saying it's merely a branch of the well-established hobby of collecting celebrity autographs.

Bohannon, 30, began collecting criminals' signatures at age 13, when he first wrote to notorious prisoners. His large collection now includes a few choice Theriault pieces, as well as some prison memorabilia from Canadian child-murderer Clifford Olsen.

"More than anything, it's about getting to know someone who's looking for a friend," Bohannon said in an interview from his home in Cornelia, Ga., where he teaches kindergarten by day.

His advice for crime victims who might object to the website? ``If my site's hurting you, just don't go to it."

So-called "Son of Sam" laws in the United States, designed to prevent criminals from profiting from their notoriety through big film and book deals, have been challenged on constitutional grounds and in any case do not target crime memorabilia.

A bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress last fall to try to curtail the trade in crime memorabilia, although observers say it's unlikely to have much impact even if it's passed.

A spokesman for Corrections Canada said there appear to be no similar laws in this country preventing the trade in ``murderabilia."

"I don't believe there's any legislation in Canada that goes to that effect," Guy Campeau said in an interview.

Corrections Canada does have the legal authority to forbid a prisoner from producing works that are obscene or offensive, constitute hate literature, or pose a risk to safety or security.

"We're aware of the website, but it's not within our mandate or jurisdiction to deal with these issues," Campeau said. "After it's out in the public, well obviously the Correctional Service doesn't have any mandate or jurisdiction to intervene on this."

Campeau added that the department is nevertheless reviewing the case.

Theriault is still visited regularly by some of his former cult ``wives," who have moved to New Brunswick to be close to him and have borne him more children following conjugal visits.

One of Theriault's best-known victims, Gabrielle Lavallee, was not immediately available for comment. Lavallee, who had her hand chopped off by a meat cleaver, wrote a best-selling French-language account of her time with Theriault, L'alliance de la brebis, or The Alliance of Sheep, in which she denounces him as an incurable, sadistic psychopath.

Theriault's poems for sale are brief and in French, such as Le regret, c'est de ne plus jamais recommence (Regret is to never be able to do it again), dated last October.

Bohannon's website says Theriault, who believed himself to be a reincarnation of Moses, was in a coma for a month last fall. Campeau said he is restricted by law from providing any personal information on individual inmates.

MurderAuction.com also offers a signed prison letter from Clifford Olsen. Bohannon said his personal collection includes some awards Olsen received in prison for winning 100-metre and 500-metre races.

90DayJane - Can Suicide be Performance Art?

90DayJane, who claims her suicide countdown blog is art, provokes a huge and often harsh reaction.

90DayJane is an online persona launched Feb. 5 as a countdown blog for a woman, apparently from Los Angeles, claiming she would commit suicide in 90 days – May 5. No good reason was offered. She appears to be young.

If the young, anonymous woman is to be believed, threatening suicide online constitutes art. Others disagree with making the act a performance.

With up to 4,000 Canadians a year committing suicide and more than 100,000 calls being made to distress centres in Toronto, Hill says he puts more of his focus on those truly in trouble than on the suicide countdowns he's seen appear on the Internet from time to time.

"My generation has had no great depression, no great war and our biggest obstacle is beating Halo 3," Jane says in the entry launching 90dayjane.com. "So, if I feel like saying `game over,' why can't I?"

The question generated thousands of responses before the blog was shut down last Tuesday evening, only to re-emerge the next day with a mea culpa and a promise to close for good within days.

"90DayJane is a personal art piece about me," Jane wrote in her Day 83 posting, saying she began the blog "for me and (what I ignorantly thought would be) a small number of people who might find it on Blogspot."

She said the site was meant to be a modern take on the story of Christine Chubbuck, whose on-air suicide at a Florida television station inspired the 1976 movie Network.

"Her story both inspired and terrified me because I can truly empathize with her rage and even her isolation. I wondered how Christine's life and subsequent suicide would play out in our time," Jane wrote.

She has declined media interviews, and posted a request she received from a "huge" TV network to meet with its executives. The network asked: "Can we make this happen very soon?" in the email Jane posted to the site.

"Wow, and people think I'm morbid," says Jane.

Real or not, the performance of a woman saying she would commit suicide is what makes it art, says Joanne Tod, a painter who teaches at the University of Toronto.

"I'm not saying it's good art," Tod adds quickly, labelling the site "narcissistic and exhibitionist."

Tod also doubts the veracity of the art claim, saying a true artist would identify herself. Without that, she says, it's possible someone just claimed the site was art as a way to justify something that very quickly got out of control.

"It gives art a bad name, if that's what she's doing."

The site attracted some 160,000 hits, half in its final 24 hours, and thousands of comments from visitors in its first week. Several egged her on, offering gruesome suggestions on how she might kill herself. Others lashed out, calling her an "attention-seeking whore." Few showed any sympathy.

"I like your idea for sharing your final 90 days. I think you're about to become a little more famous than you expected," someone identifying as Fawkes wrote. "Good luck with offing yourself."

Others told her not to wait.

"Normally I would be adamantly opposed to anyone committing suicide, but in your case I will make an exception," Wizeguyinpa wrote. "Off yourself immediately and quit counting how many people visit your site."

The blog horrified suicide experts. Dr. John Draper of the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline posted a message on the site warning that the blog could encourage others to emulate her.

"She is suggesting that suicide is a reasonable method for those questioning life's meaning, which is just absurd," Draper told the New York Daily News.

He did not think much of the site's artistic merits. "I'm not an art critic but I do wish the student's attempts at learning were more socially responsible," he said.

Throughout, there was speculation the site was a viral marketing tool for a movie or video game, something industry expert Carmi Levy said would likely backfire.

"At some point, a line is crossed," says Levy, a consultant with AR Communications. "Using suicide would likely be seen as going too far."

Tod said the same would likely apply to art.

Within days of the site being launched, other bloggers began linking to it and opening their own discussions about it.

Once something begins to take off on the Internet, Levy says, others jump on board to generate traffic to their own sites as a way to boost revenue.

"There's a self-serving aspect to a lot of the comments, the forum post and the blog posts," he says.

In her post admitting her suicide threat was not real, Jane wrote that she did not want all the attention she received, and expressed "great disappointment with my generation" over the responses.

Swiss art heist, 2 paintings found in car

ZURICH, Switzerland – Two Impressionist paintings stolen in one of Europe's largest art thefts have been recovered in an abandoned car, police said today. The gallery may have paid a ransom to have them returned.

The pictures by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet were among four paintings worth $163 million that were stolen from a private museum in a Feb. 10 armed robbery.

The two other paintings taken from the E.G. Buehrle Collection – one by Edgar Degas and the other by Paul Cezanne – remain missing, Philipp Hotzenkoecherle, commandant of the Zurich city police, told reporters.

The recovered paintings – Monet's "Poppy field at Vetheuil" and van Gogh's "Blooming Chestnut Branches" – were discovered in a parking lot in front of a Zurich mental hospital on Monday. It was unknown how long the white sedan in which the paintings were found had been parked there, Hotzenkoecherle said.

The pictures, worth a combined $64 million, were in good condition and were still under the glass behind which they were displayed in the museum, he said.

They were identified by museum director Lukas Gloor after a thorough inspection.

Zurich police spokesman Marco Cortesi said he did not know whether a ransom had been paid to recover the paintings.

Gloor, standing next to him, said: "I can't give any information on that."

Gloor said the two paintings still missing included "our collection's landmark "Boy in the Red Waistcoat."

That painting, by Cezanne, alone is worth $91 million. The other painting is Degas' "Ludovic Lepic and his Daughter."

Local radio station Radio 24, citing an unidentified witness, reported that the building supervisor at the hospital found the paintings in an unlocked car.

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

Police sealed off the hospital grounds and forensic experts went over the vehicle meticulously before it was towed away.

Police initially said the vehicle may have been used by the three robbers when they made their escape with the four paintings from the museum.