Thieves recently pilfered four paintings from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, according to the town’s mayor. However, two of the stolen artworks were abandoned in the museum’s gardens as law enforcement, alerted by alarms, pursued the perpetrators on Tuesday morning.
The most prized creations of the impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir have commanded substantial sums at auctions over the years. Mayor Bryan Masson disclosed that the thieves unlawfully entered the museum shortly before 6 a.m. by breaching a hole in the garden fence to seize the four paintings, marking the latest in a series of audacious art thefts in the country.
Describing the act as a severe blow to the history and legacy of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Mayor Masson emphasized the gravity of attacking the Renoir Museum. The stolen paintings, Madame Colonna Romano and Young Woman at the Well, are part of the collection from Paris’s renowned Musée d’Orsay, temporarily on loan to the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer.
“It’s Renoir’s, it is priceless, you cannot sell it like that,” the mayor expressed to reporters outside the museum. Additionally, the thieves had taken Madame Pichon and Coco Reading, a portrayal of Claude, the son of the famous Impressionist artist, but discarded them in the gardens during the police pursuit, as confirmed by Masson and the Marseille prosecutor’s office.
An official investigation into the organized gang’s theft has been initiated by the Marseille prosecutor. Established in 1960 within the artist’s mansion on a hill in Cagnes-sur-Mer, the museum houses a collection of 13 Renoir paintings, along with approximately 40 sculptures, furniture pieces, and photographs.
Following a similar incident at the Louvre Museum in 2025, where €88 million worth of jewels were stolen, Europol highlighted a rise in violent art thefts in Europe, with ad hoc opportunists recruited through social media replacing traditional specialist gangs. The French government faces mounting pressure to address security lapses in museums, as a parliamentary report revealed deficiencies in resources and preparedness to safeguard valuable artworks and cultural items.
Mayor Masson, affiliated with the National Rally (RN) party, urged enhanced security measures for museums nationwide, citing the recent crime targeting artworks as a call for vigilance. A 2024 survey by the French Culture Ministry underscored the lack of emergency and risk prevention plans in three-quarters of institutions, with nearly half lacking any video surveillance systems.