MILAN, Italy (AFP) — Thieves stole paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse from a museum in Italy a week ago, police said Sunday.
Four masked men entered the villa of the Magnani Rocca Foundation, near Parma in northern Italy, and made off with the artworks overnight last Sunday into Monday, a police spokesperson told Agence France-Presse, confirming a report on the Rai television network.
They made off with “Fish” by Auguste Renoir, “Still Life with Cherries” by Paul Cezanne, and “Odalisque on the Terrace” by Henri Matisse worth several million euros, said Italian media reports.
The thieves forced the entrance door to get into a room on the first floor before escaping across the museum gardens.
The whole operation took less than three minutes and was structured and organized, the museum told broadcaster SkyTG24.
They had not been able to go any further thanks to the surveillance system and rapid intervention of police and security officers, the museum added.
Police are looking at the museum’s video-surveillance footage and that of neighboring businesses, said a police spokesperson.
The Magnani Rocca Foundation, 20 kilometers from Parma, hosts the collection of art historian Luigi Magnani, which also includes works by Durer, Rubens, Van Dyck, Goya and Monet.
The theft is the latest in a series of robberies targeting major museums in Europe.
Last October, thieves broke into the world-famous Louvre museum in Paris in broad daylight, escaping in less than eight minutes with jewellery worth $102 million.