Thieves broke into a museum dedicated to French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir on the French Riviera early Tuesday and stole four paintings, with one later recovered after being dropped during a police chase, according to reports.
The break-in took place shortly before 6 a.m. local time at the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nice, according to Mayor Bryan Masson.
According to Reuters, police spotted the suspects as they fled the museum and gave chase. One of the four stolen paintings was dropped during the escape and subsequently recovered, while the thieves managed to get away with the remaining three artworks, Masson said.
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The museum alarm went off at 5:48 a.m., with municipal police arriving about five minutes later, according to the mayor. "Attacking the Renoir museum is attacking a part of the history and heritage of Cagnes-sur-Mer," Masson said, calling the incident particularly serious.
The museum was established in 1960 at Les Collettes, the mansion where Renoir spent the final years of his life. It houses works by the artist along with personal belongings, including his easel and wheelchair.
The mayor did not identify the paintings stolen in Tuesday's raid. Renoir's most valuable works have sold for tens of millions of dollars at auction.
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The heist comes less than a year after a major robbery at Paris' Louvre Museum, where thieves stole jewellery worth around €88 million in a daylight raid in October 2025. Europol said last month that art thefts in Europe are becoming increasingly violent, with traditional specialist gangs increasingly being replaced by opportunistic groups recruited through social media.
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