Three paintings by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse worth millions of dollars have been stolen in three minutes from a museum near the city of Parma in northern Italy, police said Monday.
The heist at Magnani
Rocca Foundation, a private museum, took place on the night of March 22-23. The three stolen paintings are “Fish” by Auguste Renoir, “Still Life with Cherries” by Paul Cézanne, and “Odalisque on the Terrace” by Henri Matisse.
CBS News cited local news stating that the thieves were able to nab the paintings in less than three minutes and escape across the museum gardens.
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The foundation, established in 1977, has a collection of art historian Luigi Magnani and also includes works by Dürer, Rubens, Van Dyck, Goya and Monet.
The local media quoted the museum authorities stating that a structured and organised gang was likely responsible for the theft, which was interrupted by the alarm.
However, the museum has not issued any statement.
This heist comes after several high-profile heists at key European museums, including in Paris’s Louvre museum in which thieves stole jewels and other items worth $101 million.
In a brazen theft, thieves took less than eight minutes in October to steal crown jewels valued at 88 million euros (USD 102 million) from the Louvre, in a weekend operation that stunned visitors, exposing security lapses. Several suspects were later arrested, but the stolen pieces remain missing.
In 2025, robbers stole gold, jewellery and cash worth around 30 million euros ($35 million/Rs 314.4 crores) from a German bank in the city of Gelsenkirchen during the extended Christmas break, using a large drill to break into the bank’s underground vault.
