Staff at Whitworth Art Gallery in south of Manchester city center raised the alarm as they prepared to reopen at around 12:00 local time Sunday, according to the police.

Van Gogh's "The Fortification of Paris with Houses," Picasso's "Poverty," Gauguin's "Tahitian Landscape" and several other items could have been snatched at any time after 21:00 local time Saturday.

"This was a well-planned theft and we have launched a major inquiry," a police spokesman said. "We are now trying to piece together what happened."

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, a 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 largest of the three masterpieces measures 39 by 53 centimeters, said the police spokesman.

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.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2003)