Thieves stole paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse from a museum in Italy a week ago, police said on Sunday.
Four masked men entered the villa of the Magnani Rocca Foundation, near Parma in northern Italy, and made off with the artworks overnight on Sunday into Monday last week, a police spokesman said, 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, Italian media reports said.
Photo: AP
The thieves forced open 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, a police spokesman said.
The Magnani Rocca Foundation 20km 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.
Thieves in October last year broke into the world-famous Louvre museum in Paris in broad daylight, escaping in less than eight minutes with jewelry worth U$102 million.
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