French police on Sept. 8 hunted for two thieves who escaped with two Renoir paintings from a museum, after abandoning two others as they fled, in a burglary that reignited concerns about the protection of France’s cultural heritage.
The heist is the latest in a string of such robberies including the daylight theft last year of crown jewelry valued at around $100 million from the Louvre in Paris.
The theft in the southern town of Cagnes-sur-Mer took place in a matter of minutes shortly before 6 a.m.
Town mayor Bryan Masson said the duo appeared “well equipped and well informed” about the museum housing works by French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The suspects cut through a fence to enter the museum’s tree-lined grounds, smashed a window to get inside, and used an electric saw to cut through the frame mountings, he said.
“The museum and police sirens forced the burglars to hurry, stealing only four works from the Renoir Museum,” added the mayor.
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 euros.
They made off with a portrait titled “Madame Colonna Romano” and the depiction of a woman at a well called “Jeune femme au puits,” his office said.
The paintings retrieved include “Madame Pichon” and “Coco lisant,” a portrait of Renoir’s young son Claude reading.
The mayor said it took 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,” said Masson.
A representative of a top French police union suggested that reconnaissance work was carried out beforehand.
“These were certainly not first-time offenders,” said Lilie Jalabert of the Alliance Police Nationale.
“They were people with some experience who had, at the very least, scoped out the premises before carrying out this crime.”
