A year later, they realize it’s missing

A painting missing from an exhibition of Switzerland’s most famous artist was stolen more than a year ago, and no one realized the crime until recently, police said.

“Landscape in Tessin,” a work by Ferdinand Hodler, was listed in the catalog for the exhibition “A Symbolic Vision” in the Art Museum in the Swiss capital of Bern, Zurich municipal police spokeswoman Judith Hoedl said Friday. It never arrived for the show, which began April 9, and was probably stolen in late 2006, she said.

The theft came to light last month, when shippers arrived to collect the painting from its private owner and take it to the museum, Hoedl said. The owner reported that an unknown woman presented herself more than a year earlier to pick up the artwork for the show, arousing no suspicion, according to the police spokeswoman.