Two thieves broke into a museum dedicated to the French Impressionist artist Auguste Renoir on Tuesday and stole four works of art, one of which was dropped during their escape.
The two men were spotted thanks to the city's surveillance cameras and fled, after which they abandoned one of the stolen paintings, said Bryan Masson, mayor of the southern French city of Cagnes-sur-Mer.
His office estimates the value of the stolen artworks at 9 million euros, which corresponds to approximately 100 million kronor.
The Renoir Museum opened in 1960 in Pierre-Auguste Renoir's last home and houses objects and furniture that belonged to the artist, including his easel and wheelchair, as well as paintings of portraits, landscapes and nudes.
Mayor Bryan Masson says the police were quickly on site.
The museum's alarm went off at 5:48 a.m. At 5:53 a.m., just five minutes later, our municipal police were on site, he says.
The theft comes less than a year after eight objects worth around one billion kronor were stolen from the Louvre in Paris. The four suspected robbers in that heist have been arrested, but the objects are still missing.
