Paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse stolen

Three paintings by French masters Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cezanne and Henri Matisse have been stolen from a museum in northern Italy, police say.

The theft took place at the Fondazione Magnani Rocca, on the outskirts of the city of Parma, during the night of March 22-23, the Carabinieri police said in a statement on Monday. 

Thieves broke into the building's main entrance and took Cezanne's Tasse et Plat de Cerises (Cup and plate of cherries), Renoir's Les Poissons (The fish) and Matisse's Odalisque sur la Terrasse (Odalisque on the terrace), police added.

Italian public broadcaster Rai reported the stolen works were worth a combined €9 million ($NZ18 million) - a figure that was not confirmed by the Carabinieri.

The museum, home to a private collection compiled by the late music critic and musicologist Luigi Magnani, said separately that the theft took less than three minutes.

The Fondazione Magnani Rocca's collection also includes works by Titian, Francisco Goya, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Claude Monet, Peter Paul Rubens and Giorgio Morandi, according to its website.