Two Renoir paintings were still missing on Tuesday night, hours after thieves broke into the Musée Renoir on the French Riviera and made off with four of the artist's canvases. Two of the works were recovered within the grounds, but the pair that vanished may prove far harder to trace, and specialists in stolen art say that if the paintings are ever sold, one of the few markets likely to take them is Russia.
The break-in at the hilltop museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nice, was over in minutes. Two intruders cut through wire fencing to reach the grounds and forced their way inside shortly before 6 a.m. According to the mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Bryan Masson, they used an electric saw to cut through the fittings holding the frames before lifting four paintings from the walls. The museum's alarm sounded at 5:48 a.m., and police reached the scene five minutes later.
