Stolen Renoir paintings recovered, six people arrested

French police have recovered the two Renoir paintings that were stolen from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on September 8, 2026, and six people have been arrested. The town's mayor, Bryan Masson, confirmed the news on Friday, October 9.

The recovered works are "Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano" and "Young Woman at the Well". Both belong to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and were on loan to the museum, which occupies the estate where Pierre-Auguste Renoir spent the last years of his life.

On the night of the theft, the intruders cut through the garden fence and broke into the house shortly before 6 a.m. The alarm brought the police within minutes. The thieves had taken four paintings, but dropped two of them, "Madame Pichon" and "Coco Reading", in the garden as they fled.

Investigators treated the case as organized crime, and France's national office against trafficking in cultural goods joined the search. The prosecutor's office has not yet said how the paintings were found.

Source: The Globe and Mail