Thieves steal Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse paintings worth millions from Italian museum | Art theft
Police said thieves stole paintings by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse from a museum in Italy a week ago.
Confirming a report on the Rai television network, a police spokesman said that on the night of March 22, four masked men entered the Magnani Rocca Foundation villa near Parma in northern Italy and took away the works of art.
According to Italian media reports, they stole Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s The Fish, Paul Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries and Henri Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace.
Stolen paintings had estimated value total value 9 million euros (£7.8 million), the BBC reported.
The thieves forced their way through the entrance door and entered a room on the first floor before escaping from the museum gardens. The museum told broadcaster SkyTG24 that the operation took less than three minutes and was structured and organised.
The museum stated that they could not go any further thanks to the surveillance system and the rapid intervention of the police and security guards. A police spokesman said police were looking at security camera footage of the museum and neighboring businesses.
Located 20 km (12 mi) from Parma, the Magnani Rocca Foundation houses art historian Luigi Magnani’s collection, which includes works by Dürer, Rubens, Van Dyck, Goya and Monet. It was founded in 1977.
The theft is the latest in a series of robberies targeting major museums in Europe.
In October last year, thieves broke into the Louvre Museum in Paris in broad daylight and made off with $102 million worth of jewels in less than eight minutes.
