Renoir paintings worth millions stolen in French museum heist — SkimNews
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- Two thieves broke into the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer early Tuesday, cutting through a fence and frame structures to seize four paintings before dropping two in the museum gardens as they escaped, per Mayor Bryan Masson.
- The two missing works — "Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano" (1910) and "Jeune fille au puits" (1886), each valued at €9m (£7.7m) — remain stolen, while "Portrait of Madame Pichon" (1895) and "Coco Lisant" (1905) were recovered.
- Mayor Bryan Masson said the thieves were "well-equipped" and "well-informed," wearing helmets, gloves, and combat gear while carrying an electric knife and hacksaw; the alarm triggered at 05:48 and police arrived within five minutes.
- The heist is the latest in a European wave of high-profile art thefts, following the October 2024 Louvre crown jewels robbery and last month's theft of four Renaissance paintings from a Sicily museum.
- The Renoir Museum, opened in 1960 in the artist's last home before his 1919 death, houses 12 of his artworks plus personal items including his easel and wheelchair.
- Masson called the attack on the museum "attacking a part of the history and heritage of Cagnes-sur-Mer" and urged the French government to provide more funding to protect museums from "increasingly organised and determined criminals."
Why it matters: Two paintings worth a combined €18 million are now in the hands of thieves who breached a museum holding Renoir's last home and personal effects, yet abandoned two other works mid-escape — suggesting either panic or a cap on what they could carry. The incident marks the third major European art heist in under a year, and the local mayor is explicitly demanding national-level funding for museum security.
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