Two Picasso paintings worth millions of pounds have been stolen from an art gallery in Switzerland, police have revealed.
The oil paintings were stolen on Wednesday evening after an exhibition of the artist’s work in the town of Pfaeffikon, near Zurich, had closed.
Tête de Cheval (Head of Horse) and Verre et Pichet (Glass and Pitcher), were on loan from the Sprengel museum in Germany to the Seedamm-Kulturzentrum.
The Sprengel museum would not disclose the value of the works.
It is unclear how the thieves entered the gallery, but police are investigating whether they hid in the building before it closed. They set off an alarm as they left.
The Sprengel museum has promised a reward to anyone with information that leads to the recovery of the paintings.
The Swiss exhibition is of Picasso works loaned to the museum. It includes 20 original Picasso paintings and 170 other works, including etchings, linoleum cuts and prints.
Thefts of work by Picasso are relatively common, partly because there are so many of them. In 1989, thieves stole 12 works from the home of his granddaughter, Marina, in Cannes. They were later recovered.
Seven Picasso oil paintings were stolen from a Zurich gallery in 1994 and have not been found. Portrait of Suzanne Bloch (1904), worth about £25.7m, was stolen from the Sao Paulo museum of art in Brazil in December, but was returned undamaged last month.
The highest price paid for a Picasso is £53.4m for the 1905 painting Garçon à la Pipe (Boy with a Pipe), sold at auction at Sotheby’s in New York in 2004.