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Thieves stole four paintings from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, the local mayor said, but dropped two of them in the gardens as police, alerted by alarms, gave chase early Tuesday.
The most valuable works of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir have fetched dozens of millions of dollars at auctions.
Mayor Bryan Masson said the thieves broke into the museum a little before 6 a.m. through a hole made in a garden fence to snatch four paintings — the latest of a series of brazen art thefts in the country.
“Attacking the Renoir Museum is attacking a part of the history and heritage of Cagnes-sur-Mer. These actions are particularly serious,” Masson said.
The two stolen paintings were Madame Colonna Romano and Young Woman at the Well, the municipality said. Both belong to Paris’s famous Musée d’Orsay and were on loan to Cagnes-sur-Mer’s Renoir Museum.
“It’s Renoir’s, it is priceless, you cannot sell it like that,” the mayor told reporters, speaking in front of the museum
The thieves had also taken the paintings Madame Pichon and Coco Reading, a portrayal of Claude, the young son of the famous Impressionist artist, but dropped them in the gardens as police gave chase, Masson and the Marseille prosecutor’s office said.
The Marseille prosecutor said an investigation had been opened into theft by an organized gang.
The museum was created in 1960 in the mansion of the artist on a hill in Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nice, where Renoir died in 1919. The collection on display in the museum includes 13 paintings from the master and some 40 sculptures, furniture and photographs.
Theft follows 2025 Louvre heist
Art thieves in Europe are committing more violent robberies, and specialist gangs have been replaced by ad hoc opportunists recruited through social media, pan-European police body Europol said last month.
The heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris in October of last year was a prime example of this, Europol said, as the thieves threatened guards and visitors and stole €88 million ($141.5 million Cdn) worth of jewels, such as Empress Eugenie’s tiara.
The French government has come under pressure to tackle dramatic failures in the security of the country’s museums.
A French parliamentary report this summer said museums lacked resources and were ill-prepared to ensure the safekeeping of precious artworks and cultural artifacts.
Masson, a member of the far-right National Rally (RN) party, called for greater security for museums around France.
“This incident should serve as a wake-up call about the protection of our museums, which are now facing a new form of crime targeting works of art,” he said.
A French Culture Ministry survey in 2024 found that only one in four institutions had an emergency and risk prevention plan and nearly half lacked any video surveillance.
