{"id":764130,"date":"2026-09-08T16:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T16:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/764130\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T16:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T16:54:09","slug":"renoir-paintings-worth-millions-stolen-in-french-museum-heist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/764130\/","title":{"rendered":"Renoir paintings worth millions stolen in French museum heist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two paintings by the impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir have been stolen from a museum in the south of France.<\/p>\n

Two thieves broke into the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer early on Tuesday, seizing four paintings but dropping two of the works in the museum gardens as they escaped, local Mayor Bryan Masson said.<\/p>\n

The paintings, each worth \u20ac9m (\u00a37.7m; $10.4m), are the latest high-profile pieces to have been stolen in a string of recent heists in Europe which have thrust the security of art in galleries and museums into the spotlight.<\/p>\n

One of the most high-profile was in October last year, when a brazen heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris<\/a> saw France’s priceless crown jewels being stolen.<\/p>\n

CCTV footage captured the thieves entering the Renoir museum gardens by cutting through a fence before they cut through structures holding the paintings’ frames in place, the local mayor said.<\/p>\n

The alarm went off at 05:48 (05:48 GMT), and police were at the scene within five minutes, Masson explained, saying the thieves fled the scene upon hearing the security alarms.<\/p>\n

He later told reporters that the thieves seemed to be “well-equipped” and “well-informed”.<\/p>\n

They were “wearing helmets, gloves, and combat gear” and carrying “an electric knife and hacksaw,” he added.<\/p>\n

Investigators have found two zip-up bags at the scene, which may have belonged to the suspects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two paintings by the impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir have been stolen from a museum in the south of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764131,"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-764130","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\/764130","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=764130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}