{"id":503283,"date":"2026-03-30T10:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T10:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503283\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T10:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T10:47:10","slug":"renoir-and-matisse-masterpieces-stolen-in-raid-on-italian-villa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503283\/","title":{"rendered":"Renoir and Matisse masterpieces stolen in raid on Italian villa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thieves have broken into one of Italy\u2019s most important private art collections, making off with three valuable impressionist paintings by Renoir, C\u00e9zanne and Matisse. <\/p>\n

The break-in at the Magnani-Rocca Foundation\u2019s \u201cVilla of the Masterpieces\u201d near Parma occurred on the night of March 22 and was first reported on Sunday. <\/p>\n

Police said masked burglars had forced open a door to the building, in the village of Mamiano di Traversetolo, which is surrounded by an extensive park, and stole three works valued at millions of euros. <\/p>\n

\"GeneralThe foundation is hosting an exhibition entitled Symbolism in ItalyRoberto Serra\/Iguana Press\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Four burglars were involved, according to investigators, who said the break-in had lasted a few minutes and may have been commissioned by an unscrupulous collector. A fourth painting was reportedly abandoned by the thieves after an alarm went off.<\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s specialist art police are studying video of the heist. Italian media initially reported the theft of Les Poissons (The Fish), a 1917 oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir<\/a>. Dating from the painter\u2019s maturity, it was one of very few works by the impressionist master to be housed in a permanent Italian collection.<\/p>\n

\"PaintingLes PoissonsAlamy<\/p>\n

It subsequently emerged that two other valuable French works had been stolen from the villa: Odalisque sur la terrasse (Odalisque on the terrace), an aquatint on paper by Henri Matisse<\/a>, from 1922, which reproduced an oil painting of the same subject from the previous year, and Tasse et plat de cerises (Cup and plate of cherries), a watercolour by Paul C\u00e9zanne from about 1890. <\/p>\n

\"IllustrationOdalisque sur la terrasseAlamy<\/p>\n

\"IllustrationStill Life with Cherries <\/p>\n

Giovanni Damiani, an auctioneer at Arte Arcadia, a Rome auction house, said that the most valuable prize taken by the thieves was C\u00e9zanne\u2019s watercolour of the cherries. \u201cIt\u2019s something very rare, very beautiful and certainly very valuable,\u201d Damiani said. \u201cI\u2019d say it could be worth between \u20ac6 million and \u20ac10 million. Cherries are a much loved subject.\u201d Renoir\u2019s Les Poissons was a late work and could be worth only \u20ac500,000, while the Matisse print would fetch about \u20ac30,000, he suggested.<\/p>\n

The Magnani-Rocca Foundation was established by Luigi Magnani in 1977 and contains important art dating from the 11th to the 20th century, featuring works by Titian, D\u00fcrer, Rubens, Van Dyck and Goya. <\/p>\n

Magnani was a writer, collector and art critic, whose lifelong friendship with the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi helped him to accumulate an exceptional collection of about 50 paintings, drawings and prints illustrating the entire career of the Bolognese artist. <\/p>\n

Les Poissons was on display next to another late work by Renoir, Paysage de Cagnes (Cagnes landscape), which was not stolen. Both were painted during the period when the artist moved to Cagnes-sur-Mer, in southern France, and was influenced by a long journey through Italy between 1881 and 1882 and by his struggles with the infirmities of old age. <\/p>\n

Magnani\u2019s collection of French artists, built up in the second half of the 20th century, is unique in Italy. \u201cIt\u2019s this rarity, even before the question of price, that makes the theft a wound on the national heritage,\u201d the local Gazzetta di Parma newspaper said. <\/p>\n

Magnani began opening his collection to the public in 1983, the year before his death and it has been functioning as a museum since 1990. It is hosting an exhibition of 140 works on Symbolism in Italy, which runs until June 28. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thieves have broken into one of Italy\u2019s most important private art collections, making off with three valuable impressionist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-503283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}