Thieves steal works worth $13 million from France’s Renoir museum: Mayor

• Two thieves stole four artworks worth €9 million from the Renoir Museum in southern France, abandoning one painting while fleeing.
• The museum, located in Renoir's last home, houses his personal items and paintings, and police responded within five minutes.
• This theft follows a major Louvre robbery last year, where stolen items worth US$100 million remain missing despite arrests and investigations.

Marseille – Two thieves broke into a museum dedicated to French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir in southern France on Sept 8, stealing “four works of art”, two of which they dropped as they fled, a mayor said.

“The museum and police sirens forced the burglars to hurry, stealing only four works from the Renoir Museum out of the 12 the museum holds,” said Bryan Masson, the mayor of the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Of those four, two were “left behind in the gardens of the Renoir museum”, added the far-right official, whose office earlier estimated the value of the stolen works at €9 million (S$13 million).

The Renoir Museum was opened in 1960 in the painter’s last home before he died at age 78 in 1919.

Its collection includes objects and furniture that belonged to Renoir, including his easel and wheelchair, as well as portraits, landscapes and nudes painted by the artist.

Some of his more famous works are on display at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, as well as in London and New York.

‘Just five minutes’

The mayor said it took just five minutes for the authorities to respond.

“The museum alarm went off at 5.48am. At 5.53am, just five minutes later, our municipal police were on the scene,” he said.

A spate of heists at French museums, including at the Louvre in Paris, has highlighted inadequate security in some cases and led to questions about whether criminal gangs see them as soft targets.

The theft comes less than a year after eight items valued at around US$100 million (S$126 million) were stolen during a daylight robbery from the Louvre.

The four suspected Louvre robbers have been arrested, but the stolen items have still not been found despite extensive searches by French investigators in the Paris region and exchanges with police in Belgium, Italy and beyond. AFP