Another Art Heist Rocks France

Art thieves hit the Renoir Museum on the French Riviera before sunrise Tuesday, making off with four paintings worth millions before reportedly dropping two as they ran away. Authorities in Cagnes-sur-Mer say two people broke into the museum, which is also the Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir's final home, and were spotted on surveillance cameras. Mayor Bryan Masson put the value of the stolen works at around $10 million. He said local police arrived within five minutes of the alarm sounding at 5:48am, ultimately finding two of the paintings in the museum's garden, per the AP.

The museum's collection includes 13 Renoir paintings as well as sculptures, photographs, and even Renoir's easel, per the Guardian and Reuters. The BBC names the missing paintings as Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano (1910) and Young Woman at the Well (1886), with Portrait of Madame Pichon (1895) and Coco Lisant (1905) found outside the building. Early reports indicate the thieves likely entered by smashing a window; Masson also described a hole in a garden fence, per Reuters. The heist, being investigated by the organized crime squad, follows a major theft last year at the Louvre and comes amid a Europol warning that European art robberies are increasingly violent and fueled by loosely organized crews.