Paintings worth €9m stolen from Renoir Museum on French Riviera in latest art heist

TWO THIEVES HAVE broken into a museum dedicated to French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir in southern France and stolen four artworks.

The museum is located in the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, around 15km southwest of Nice.

“The museum and police sirens forced the burglars to hurry, stealing only four works from the Renoir Museum out of the twelve the museum holds,” said Bryan Masson, the town’s mayor and a member of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party.

Of those four, two were “left behind in the gardens of the Renoir museum”, he added.

His office estimates the value of the stolen works at €9 million. 

According to French newspaper Nice-Matin, three of the four stolen paintings are Portrait of Madame Pichon (1895), Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano (1910) and Coco Lisant (1905).

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The Renoir Museum was opened in 1960 in the painter’s last home before his death 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.

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

“The museum alarm went off at 5:48 am. At 5:53 am, just five minutes later, our municipal police were on the scene,” he said.

The theft comes less than a year after eight items valued at around €88 million were stolen during a daylight robbery from the Louvre in Paris.

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.

Last month, Italian police said they had recovered paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth over €8.9 million which were stolen in a three-minute heist from a museum in March.

The spate of museum robberies across Europe in recent years has prompted Irish institutions to reassess their security systems as they look to safeguard their precious artefacts.

With reporting from © AFP 2026