[MSN] A painting by leading Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler was stolen from a private collection in 2006, it has emerged.

[MSN]

Hodler painting theft confirmed

A painting by leading Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler was stolen from a
private collection in 2006, it has emerged.

The work was taken from a Zurich collector and was destined to go on show at
a Hodler retrospective in Bern, the Museum of Fine Arts director Matthias
Frehner confirmed on Friday.

The work, believed to be Landscape in Ticino, still features in the
catalogue for the exhibition, A Symbolic Vision, which opened earlier this
month.

Zurich police confirmed a Hodler painting had been stolen in 2006 but would
not identify it.

However a report on the police website from March 2007 states a SFr1.1
million ($1.09 million) painting by the artist dated 1893, measuring 63cm by
50cm and depicting chestnut trees in Ticino was stolen in Zurich sometime
between September 12 and October 31, 2006.

Hodler, who lived from 1853 until 1918, is generally considered
Switzerland's national artist. The Museum of Fine Arts exhibition in Bern
showcases around 150 works charting Hodler's path from early realism to the
symbolism characterising his later works.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/