Zurich, Switzerland is on the lookout for nearly a thousand works of art that are missing from its public collection, including a painting by Le Corbusier valued at about $1.5 million.
There’s not likely to be a spectacular arrest, though. Possibly not any, because it’s unclear whether there is even a crime, or whether Swiss officials are simply not as meticulous as popular belief says. It appears that the 946 pieces, out of a total of over 34,000, have just simply gone missing through undocumented lending, lack of storage records and carelessness.
It’s even possible that many are not missing, but just stored in city buildings without having been recorded, although the city did recover a number of pieces in recent years, including six so far this year. Until 2009, the city had never done a complete inventory, and until this year did not release a list of the missing. Most of the works are of much lower value than the Le Corbusier, but together they’re worth about another half million.
And Zurich is not alone. In addition to the city’s missing, the surrounding Zurich Canton is missing 2,000 pieces, and Bern has managed to misplace 200.