The suspects cut through a fence to enter the museum’s tree-lined grounds, smashed a window to get inside, and used an electric saw to cut through the frame mountings.
The theft took place in a matter of minutes, shortly before 6am local time. The two stolen paintings were Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano and Jeune Femme Au Puits.
Renoir’s Coco Lisant, a portrait of his infant son Claude, and Madame Pichon were the artworks dumped as the thieves fled.
A source close to the probe told AFP this week that police had arrested five people as part of the investigation.
According to Masson, the museum alarm and police sirens forced the burglars, who he described as “well equipped and well informed” about the museum, to hurry.
Coco Lisant, by Renoir, was one of two paintings dropped in the grounds of the museum as thieves made off with two others during a heist in September.
Police said at the time of the robbery it was clear the burglars were not first-time offenders and they had scoped out the premises before the crime.
The Renoir Museum is in Renoir’s last home before he died aged 78 in 1919. It is a half-hour drive from the southern city of Nice and its collection comprises nine paintings by Renoir, several sculptures by him, as well as objects and furniture, such as his easel and wheelchair.
A spate of heists at French museums has highlighted inadequate security and raised questions about whether criminal gangs see them as soft targets.
Crown jewellery valued at about US$100 million ($178m) was stolen in daylight from the Louvre in Paris last year.
The four suspected Louvre robbers have been arrested, but the jewels they are accused of grabbing in the seven-minute heist have still not been found.
Italian police in August said they had recovered paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth more than US$10.4m that were stolen in a three-minute heist from a museum in March.
And this week, a book featuring a cover made of bronze and designed by Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali was stolen from an art museum in central France.
– AFP