Renoir paintings stolen from Riviera museum recovered, six people arrested

Two ​Renoir paintings worth millions of ‌dollars that ​were stolen from a museum on the French Riviera a month ago have been recovered ‌and six suspects have been arrested, the local mayor said on Friday.

Thieves had broken into the grounds of the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer early ‌in the morning of September 8 through a hole cut in ‌a garden fence and entered through a window. The two paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, an Impressionist whose works have fetched tens of millions of dollars at auction, were "Madame ⁠Colonna ​Romano" and "Young Woman ⁠at the Well". Both belong to Paris' Orsay Museum and were on loan.

"This news ⁠is a source of immense joy and a great relief for the town ​of Cagnes-sur-Mer and its residents," mayor Bryan Masson said in a ⁠statement. The Marseille public prosecutor's office did not immediately respond to questions about how ⁠the ​paintings had been recovered. The mayor scheduled a press conference on Thursday afternoon then cancelled it so as not to interfere with ⁠the investigation.

The thieves had also snatched two other paintings, "Madame Pichon" and "Coco Reading", ⁠a portrayal of ⁠Claude, Renoir's young son. But they dropped them in the gardens as police, alerted by alarms, arrived and ‌gave chase.