Thieves take two Renoirs from the artist's house-museum on the Riviera

Two thieves cut a garden fence at the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer before dawn on Tuesday, 8 September, climbed through a window, and lifted four paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The alarm sounded at 05:48. Municipal police were on the grounds within five minutes. The pair fled. They dropped two canvases in the garden and kept two.

Still missing, according to Mayor Bryan Masson and the Marseille prosecutor, are Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano (1910) and Jeune fille au puits (Young Woman at the Well, 1886). Both belong to the Musée d'Orsay and were on loan. Recovered in the garden were Portrait of Madame Pichon (1895) and Coco Lisant (1905), a picture of Renoir's youngest son, Claude. Masson put the value of the stolen pair at €9 million. He also said the works are, in practice, unsellable on an open market.

CCTV showed the thieves in helmets, gloves and combat clothing. Masson said they used an electric knife or a metal saw to cut the bolts that held the frames. He described the method as a commando job and said he thinks they meant to take more and left because the alarm beat them. The Marseille prosecutor opened a case for theft by an organised gang.

The museum occupies Les Collettes, the house on the hill where Renoir died in 1919. It opened as a museum in 1960. The permanent collection holds 13 paintings and about 40 sculptures, plus family furniture and photographs. Attacking that house, Masson told reporters, is attacking a piece of the town's history.

The theft sits in a short, ugly sequence. In October 2025 thieves took French crown jewels from the Louvre. Europol warned in August that museum robberies in Europe are getting more violent, with sledgehammers, explosives and firearms turning up in case files. Cagnes-sur-Mer is not the Louvre. It is a small municipal museum with a garden fence that could be cut. That is the security fact.

Colonna Romano was a comedian and the companion of Renoir's eldest son, Pierre. Renoir painted her more than once. Jeune fille au puits is an 1886 oil on panel, 35 by 27 centimetres, a modest object by museum-wall standards and a hard object to sell if every dealer in Europe has the title on a stolen list by Wednesday morning. Size works both ways. A small panel is easier to carry through a fence. It is also easier to hide.

The Orsay loan adds a second owner to the police file. Paris will want its pictures back. Nice and Marseille own the crime scene. Interpol notices will follow if the pair is not found in France. Masson said the perpetrators are being actively sought. He did not name suspects.

For the town the loss is local. For the market the lesson is repetitive. Houses where painters died make gentle museums and weak vaults. A five-minute police response is fast and still slower than two people with a saw. The two canvases in the garden are evidence of haste. The two that left in a bag are now the inventory that matters.