Artworks stolen from Renoir Museum on French Riviera in latest heist
Thieves took four artworks but it is thought they dropped two in museum garden as they fled
by Jon Henley and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
French police are hunting two thieves who escaped with two Renoir paintings from a museum on the French Riviera after breaking in through a hole cut in its garden fence.
Bryan Masson, the mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer, about 10 miles west of Nice, said the pair appeared to have been “well equipped and well informed” about the museum, which houses works by the French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in his former home.
The theft early on Tuesday is the latest in a string of recent museum heists in France and across Europe, including the brazen break-in at the Louvre in Paris last October, when thieves stole crown jewellery worth €88m (£75m), including tiaras, a brooch, necklaces and earrings.