Two paintings by the French Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, stolen a month ago from a museum in southern France, have been recovered, the mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer announced on Friday. Six suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft, according to the town hall and local authorities. Officials have not said where the works were found or what condition they are in, and the town hall cancelled a press conference it had planned to give further details.
The recovered works are "Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano" (1910) and "Young Woman at the Well" ("Jeune fille au puits", 1886). "These two paintings are not simply works of art. They are part of our city's history," said Mayor Bryan Masson, who belongs to France's far-right National Rally party. He called the news an "immense relief". Dutch broadcaster NOS reported that the six suspects were detained on Wednesday, including the two men believed to have carried out the break-in, and that they are suspected of theft as part of an organised group.
The theft took place shortly before 6am on September 8 at the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a town on the Mediterranean coast near Nice. The museum is housed in the painter's last home, where he died in 1919. According to the mayor, two thieves cut through a fence, smashed a window and used an electric saw to cut the fixings holding the frames. He described them as "well equipped" and "well informed". The alarm sounded at 5:48am and municipal police arrived about five minutes later, forcing the thieves to flee.
They had taken four paintings, valued by the mayor at about nine million euros. Two of them, "Portrait of Madame Pichon" and "Coco Reading", were dropped in the museum garden as the thieves escaped. NOS reported that the four works were the most valuable in the collection and were on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. The Marseille prosecutor opened an investigation into an organised gang, joined by the national office for trafficking in cultural goods. Police said the thieves were not first-time offenders and had scouted the site beforehand.
The museum, which opened in 1960, holds 12 Renoir works as well as personal items such as the artist's easel and wheelchair, photographs and letters. The case adds to a run of high-profile art thefts in Europe. In October last year, thieves disguised as construction workers stole jewels valued at about 88 million euros from the Louvre in Paris in broad daylight; the suspects have been arrested but the jewels have not been found, and the museum was criticised for under-investing in security. In March, paintings by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse were stolen from a museum near Parma in Italy and were recovered in August. After the Cagnes-sur-Mer theft, Masson said it should serve as a warning about the protection of museums.