Swiss museum removes art over Nazi looting fears

This article was first published by BBC News.

One of Switzerland’s leading art museums says it will remove five paintings from one of its exhibitions while it investigates whether they were looted by the Nazis.

The works – part of a collection at the Kunsthaus Zurich museum – are by some of the world’s most acclaimed artists, including Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.

There have long been suspicions about the provenance of works in the Emil Bührle Collection – named after a German-born arms dealer who made his fortune during World War Two by making and selling weapons to the Nazis.

The decision to remove the paintings comes following the publication of new guidelines aimed at dealing with the large number of cultural works that have still not been returned to the families they were stolen from.