Two Renoir paintings have been recovered a month after they were stolen from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Rivera. On the 8th of September, the thieves used an electric saw to cut through the fence into the museum’s gardens and cut the frame mountings. Police officers arrived 4 minutes after the alarm sounded and when escaping the thieves dropped two of the four paintings they had attempted to steal. The two dropped were Portrait of Madame Stephen Pichon (1895) and Coco lisant (1905). The two stolen works, Jeune Femme au puits (1886) and Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano (1913) have been valued at €9 million (£7.6 million). The two stolen paintings have had a turbulent and fragmented history as they both were illegally sold to Nazi Germans in WW2: Jeune Femme au puits was bought by Nazi officer Hermann Brandel and Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano was acquired by the German embassy in 1940.
The two paintings were found damaged behind a false cinder block wall in a private home. Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone announced that six suspects were arrested after authorities discovered they were planning on carrying out a second heist on the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a nearby modern art museum. The investigators used recovered DNA from a discarded painting cover to arrest one of the two key suspects, the 29-year-old was already known by police for drug offences. This indicates that the criminals were opportunistic rather than it being a specialised gang.
There has been a wider trend of robberies in France and Europe in the past year such as the famous October 2025 Louvre heist. Just two weeks before the Renoir Museum Heist, the Museum of Villena in south-eastern Spain was targeted by thieves. In just four minutes, they stole a collection of Bronze Age objects that added up to nearly 10kg of gold, demonstrating that both large and small museums are facing an increased risk of robbery due to their budget constraints and inadequate security.
Within art heist films, there is a consistent trope that paintings are stolen by specialised criminals for a billionaire’s personal collection. This can be seen in films such as Dr No (1962) or Thomas Crown Affair (1999). However, it is more likely that the Renoir Museum was targeted because of aspects such as poor security and proximity to the thieves. According to Robert K. Wittman, an FBI art crimes investigator, paintings sold on the black market only reach 10 per cent of their market value. Had the Renoir paintings not been recovered their fate may have been a lot less glamorous than sitting in a billionaire’s collection; instead, it is believed that in the criminal world stolen paintings are used as collateral — a way to pay for other criminal commodities. This rise in art theft undoubtedly shows that the underfunding of museums has had a tangible effect, actively putting artworks at risk.
“Renoir Museum Cagnes-sur-mer” by martinrstone is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
