Two paintings with a value of more than 9 million euros stolen from the Renoir Museum

BarcelonaNew blow to artistic heritage in France. Two individuals broke into the Auguste Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nice, this Tuesday shortly before six in the morning, and fled with four paintings from the museum. The loot, according to municipal sources, could be valued at around 9 million euros.

The museum alarm was triggered exactly at 5:48 a.m. and the police response was practically immediate: in just five minutes, municipal police officers were already at the scene. Video surveillance cameras captured the suspects and a police chase began, during which the thieves, who managed to escape, discarded two of the paintings. The two stolen paintings are Madame Colonna Romano (1910) and Young Woman at the Well (1886), two works that were recovered in Germany after the Second World War. Both are from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which had loaned them to the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer. The recovered paintings are Coco Reading (1905), which is a portrait of the painter's son, and Portrait of Madame Stephen Pichon (1895), both also coming from the Musée d'Orsay.

The department for the fight against organized crime and specialized delinquency (DCOS) of the French police has taken charge of the investigation and is maintaining a wide search operation to locate the thieves.

The mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Bryan Masson, has strongly condemned the assault via social media. "Attacking the Renoir Museum is attacking a part of our city's history and heritage," said Masson. The mayor described the events as "particularly serious" and has called for the urgent implementation of a security plan for cultural facilities in the area.

The museum was the final residence of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the place where he died in 1919. Created in 1960, the museum's rooms house a dozen original paintings by the impressionist master, about forty sculptures, as well as documentary archives, photographs, and personal tools of the artist.

This new robbery comes almost a year after the one that took place at the Louvre Museum in Paris, where a gang managed to make off with jewelry of incalculable value. A few months ago, Europol published a report warning of a changing trend in Europe. While until now they were used to thieves who study how to take the loot with total discretion and without confrontations, the European police coordination agency warned that there is a new generation of museum robbers who do not hesitate to use force.