How Thieves Stole Paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse in a Three-Minute Art Heist

In a heist lasting just three minutes, thieves managed to steal paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, and Henri Matisse worth millions of euros from a private museum in Italy, police said on Monday. 

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The robbery took place late on the night of March 22 at the Magnani Rocca Foundation, a private countryside art museum near the city of Parma. 

The museum described the robbery as “structured and organized” in a statement to Italian media outlet SkyTG24 and noted that the full heist was “not completed” due to authorities’ rapid response.

No arrests have been made, and the museum has remained open for regular business hours. The incident is being investigated by Italy’s Carabinieri and the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Bologna.

The theft follows the major heist at the Louvre museum in Paris in October, in which thieves disguised as construction workers stole around $100 million worth of jewels. Authorities arrested multiple people within weeks of that heist.

Here’s what to know about the Italian museum heist and the paintings the thieves stole. 

How the heist unfolded

Masked thieves broke into the Magnani Rocca villa at night by forcing their way through the entrance door, the museum told SkyTG24. 

Once inside, they took the three paintings from a French art gallery on the first floor of the museum, according to local media. But the theft was seemingly interrupted by the museum’s security system being triggered, with Italian outlet La Repubblica reporting that a fourth piece of art was abandoned at the scene after the alarm sounded.

View of the Villa Magnani Rocca site of the Magnani Rocca Foundation Gallery in Parma, Italy, on September 11, 2020. —Roberto Serra—Iguana Press/Getty Images

The thieves then fled through the museum gardens, and  escaped by climbing over a fence, according to TGR, the regional broadcaster which first reported the heist.

All told, the break-in reportedly took only three minutes from start to finish. 

A police spokesperson told CNN that the museum chose to conceal the robbery from the public in hopes of catching the thieves if they returned. 

What the thieves stole

Renoir’s “Les Poissons,” Cézanne’s “Still Life With Cherries,” and Matisse’s “Odalisque on the Terrace” were reportedly stolen in the heist. 

Together, the paintings have an estimated value of around 9 million euros, according to the BBC, the equivalent of around $10.3 million.

"Odalisque on the Terrace" by Henri Matisse —Magnani Rocca Foundation/Reuters

Renoir, one of the most famous painters from the Impressionist movement, painted “Les Poissons” using oil on canvas in 1917. That piece alone is estimated to be worth around $7 million, according to Italian media. 

The “Still Life With Cherries” is a watercolor completed by Cézanne, a renowned Post-Impressionist artist, around 1890 as one of several still lifes he painted featuring the fruit. Matisse, the leader of the influential—though short-lived— Fauvism movement, painted the “Odalisque on the Terrace” in 1922.

Although all the three stolen works were painted by French artists, the Magnani Rocca Foundation has collected pieces from around the globe that span the Renaissance to contemporary works. 

Luigi Magnani was an art critic who opened his estate and private collections to the public in 1990. He died in 1984 at the age of 78. 

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