Italian authorities have successfully retrieved three valuable paintings by renowned French artists Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir that were stolen from a museum close to the northern city of Parma in March. The Carabinieri officers, part of Italy’s cultural heritage protection unit, discovered the stolen artworks in an apartment in Parma. As a result, nine Moldovan individuals are now under investigation for their involvement in the theft.
The paintings, which were taken from the Fondazione Magnani Rocca museum in Mamiano di Traversetolo, near Parma, during the night of March 22-23, were estimated to be worth over €9 million ($14.4 million. The recovered pieces include Cézanne’s “Tasse et Plat de Cerises,” Renoir’s “Les Poissons,” and Matisse’s “Odalisque sur la Terrasse.”
Video footage released by the police on Friday depicted the swift theft, with two masked burglars entering through a window, swiftly removing the paintings from the wall, and making a rapid exit from the premises in a meticulously planned operation that lasted less than three minutes.
The Fondazione Magnani Rocca is home to a private collection curated by the late music critic Luigi Magnani, featuring artworks by notable artists such as Titian, Francisco Goya, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Claude Monet, Peter Paul Rubens, and Giorgio Morandi.