World

Paintings worth millions stolen from Renoir Museum

By Inti Landauro

Sep 8, 2026

French police — Police are investigating after three paintings were stolen at the Renoir Museum in southern France. -EPA

Thieves have stolen three ‌paintings from the Renoir Museum on the French Riviera, according to the local mayor.

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The thieves initially took four artworks, valued together at around nine million euros ($A14.5 million), but abandoned one as they fled, Cagnes-sur-Mer mayor Bryan Masson said on Facebook.

"Attacking the Renoir museum is attacking a part of the history and heritage of Cagnes-sur-Mer. These actions are particularly serious," Masson said.

The museum was created in 1960 in the mansion of ⁠the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir on ‌a hill in Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nice, where he died in 1919. The collection on display in the museum ‌includes 13 paintings from the master and some 40 sculptures, furniture and photographs.

Masson did not identify the paintings that were stolen.

Renoir's most valuable works have fetched dozens of millions of dollars at auctions in the past.

Art thieves in Europe are committing more violent robberies and specialist gangs ‌have been replaced by ad hoc opportunists recruited through social media, pan-European police body Europol said last month.

The heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris in October last year was a prime example of this, Europol said, as the thieves threatened guards and visitors and stole 88 million euros worth of jewels, such as Empress ⁠Eugenie's tiara.