French police investigating the theft of two paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir from a museum on the French Riviera believe the suspects were preparing to rob another institution, the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, prosecutors said Monday.
The investigation led to the recovery of the two paintings, valued together at around $4.6 million, and the arrest of six people last week. Four men have since been charged, including two who remain in pretrial detention, according to Le Figaro, citing Agence France-Presse.
The paintings, Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano and Femme au puits (Woman at the Well), were stolen from the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer on September 8. At around 5:50 a.m., two men cut through a fence and broke a window to enter the museum, housed in the artist’s former home. Using a saber saw, they removed four paintings from the walls in approximately two minutes before an alarm sounded. They abandoned two of the works and fled with the other two.
A cover left behind by the thieves provided investigators with DNA evidence that led them to a 29-year-old man from the Var department who was already known to police. Investigators subsequently identified a second suspect, a 41-year-old man living in Corsica.
“We were very clearly dealing with the repetition of a criminal project,” Eric Antonetti, director of the Alpes-Maritimes judicial police, said at a press conference, according to Le Figaro. Fearing another burglary was imminent, investigators moved to arrest the suspects on October 7.
Police first planned to wait until they could recover the paintings before making arrests. But the investigation took an unexpected turn on October 3, when officers observed the younger suspect visiting the Fondation Maeght, a major modern art institution whose collection includes works by Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti, and Marc Chagall.
Police also observed a meeting between the principal suspect and an art dealer described by investigators as having a history of working with known forgers. Nevertheless, authorities believe the original theft was opportunistic rather than commissioned.
“The preferred hypothesis is that there was no sponsor, a priori, of the theft,” Antonetti said.
The following day, investigators recovered the two Renoirs from a house in Clermont-l’Hérault, where they had been concealed behind a false wall constructed from bricks and plasterboard. The hiding place was disclosed by a third suspect during questioning.
Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said the paintings were in relatively good condition, although both sustained damage during the burglary. They have since been transferred to the Interdisciplinary Center for Heritage Conservation and Restoration in Marseille for examination under the supervision of the Musée d’Orsay. France’s Culture Ministry said the works would eventually return to the Musée Renoir.
The case comes as French museums face renewed scrutiny over security following a series of high-profile thefts, most notably the October 2025 robbery of the Louvre, in which thieves escaped with crown jewels valued at more than $100 million. Those jewels have yet to be recovered.