CAGNES-SUR-MER, France — Thieves broke into a small museum on the French Riviera early Tuesday and stole several valuable Renoir paintings, police said.
Authorities said that two people entered the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-Sur-Mer and stole four of the famed artist’s artworks, The New York Times reported.
The paintings are worth more than $104 million (9 million euros), The Times of London reported.
According to the BBC, the French newspaper Nice-Matin identified the stolen paintings as “Portrait of Madame Pichon” (1895), “Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano” (1910), “Coco Lisant” (1905) and “Jeune femme au puits” (1886).
The museum’s alarm system was tripped at 11:48 p.m. ET on Monday, and police arrived five minutes later, the town’s mayor Bryan Masson said in a social media post, according to CNN.
🔺 BREAKING: Thieves have stolen four paintings by Renoir from a museum in the French Riviera town of Cagnes-sur-Mer — but dropped one as they fled https://t.co/Dl3N8TtsqP
— The Times and Sunday Times (@thetimes) September 8, 2026
Surveillance camera footage showed the thieves taking four paintings, The Associated Press reported. They dropped one of the paintings as they fled, Masson said. At a news conference later Tuesday, Masson said that a second painting had been recovered from the garden of the museum, according to CNN.
It was unclear which of the stolen paintings were abandoned, the BBC reported.
The theft occurred nearly a year after the Louvre was robbed, The New York Times reported. Thieves broke into one of the galleries of the venerable Paris museum and stole jewels worth more than $100 million.
[ Louvre heist: What to know about brazen daylight theft ]
“Attacking the Renoir Museum amounts to attacking part of Cagnes-sur-Mer’s history and heritage,” Masson, said in the social media post, adding that the theft was “particularly serious.”
Masson said the theft reveals a need for “a comprehensive plan to secure our museums and protect our works of art.”
The Renoir Museum is housed in the last home of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, where the impressionist artist lived before his death in 1919, the AP reported.
The museum’s permanent collection holds 13 paintings and about 40 sculptures by Renoir, along with furniture that belonged to his family, according to The New York Times.
Authorities said the museum was closed until further notice, according to the newspaper.
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