Stolen Masterpieces Found behind Toilet in Britain

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, April 28, 2003

Stolen Masterpieces Found behind Toilet in Britain

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Three paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Paul Gauguin have been found behind a public toilet on Monday, within 48 hours after they were stolen from a nearby art gallery in Manchester, northwestern England.

Van Gogh's "The Fortification of Paris with Houses," Picasso's "Poverty" and Gauguin's "Tahitian Landscape" were found in a tube behind a public toilet near the gallery, said Greater Manchester Police in a statement issued to the media.

"Following an anonymous phone call, Greater Manchester Police received information that a number of paintings were placed behind a nearby public toilet," said the statement.

The paintings, with an estimated value of one million pounds (1.6 million US dollars), had been returned to the gallery and were due to be examined by experts, said the police.

Staff at Whitworth Art Gallery in south of Manchester city center found the paintings missing late on Sunday morning.

Dutchman Vincent Van Gogh painted The Fortification of Paris with Houses in 1878, at the age of 25, using pencil, chalk and watercolors.

Between 1891 and 1893, Parisian Paul Gauguin, born in 1848, created his dramatic Tahitian Landscape with pencils and watercolors.

And in 1903, 24-year-old Pablo Picasso of Malaga, Spain, used pen, ink and blue watercolors to create Poverty, the outline of a frail man guiding a small child.

The gallery collects some 40,000 art works in total, including 12 Picasso's and Van Gogh's Hayricks, as well as sculptures, drawings, prints, wallpapers, historic textiles, British watercolors, and modern and contemporary arts.

The gallery was founded in 1889 and is designated as of national significance by the British government.

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