Art heist thieves make off with Renoir paintings worth millions from museum on French Riviera

Two Renoir Paintings Stolen from French Riviera Museum

Two armed thieves broke into the Renoir Museum in Cagnes‑sur‑Mer, a town on France’s Mediterranean coast, early Tuesday morning and stole four of the museum’s prized paintings. Two of the works were abandoned in the museum’s garden while the perpetrators fled with the other two.

The break‑in occurred just before 6 a.m. The museum’s alarm went off at 5:48 a.m. Police arrived about five minutes later and chased the suspects. Surveillance footage showed two men entering the building through a garden fence, and investigators are still searching for them.

According to the museum’s mayor, Bryan Masson, the thieves cut through the garden fence and entered the museum before sunrise. Masson said that the theft of the paintings is “attacking a part of the history and heritage of Cagnes‑sur‑Mer,” and he called for tighter security at museums across France.

The four paintings taken were “Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano,” “Coco Lisant,” “Young Girl at the Well,” and an unnamed fourth work. The French newspaper Nice‑Matin estimated the value of the stolen pieces at about €10.5 million (roughly $10 million). It is still unclear which two paintings were left behind in the garden.

The Renoir Museum, which opened in 1960, is located on a hilltop estate where the Impressionist painter Pierre‑Auguste Renoir spent the last years of his life and died in 1919. The museum’s collection includes 13 Renoir paintings, around 40 sculptures, pieces of furniture and photographs.

The museum remained closed on Tuesday while police investigated the theft.

The incident follows a spate of high‑profile museum robberies in France, including the 2023 theft of crown jewels from the Louvre and a 2024 robbery that saw €102 million worth of jewelry taken from the same institution. Europol has warned that art thefts in Europe are becoming more violent, with opportunists increasingly taking advantage of social media to coordinate crimes.