Two Renoir paintings were stolen and later found hidden in a fake wall. Other famous artworks, like Le Cri and La Joconde, have also had dramatic thefts and recoveries.
Renoir paintings stolen and recovered
Two paintings by Auguste Renoir, Portrait de Madame Colonna Romano and Femme au puits, were stolen from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on September 8. The thieves cut through a fence, broke a window, and used a circular saw to remove four paintings, but an alarm was triggered, and two paintings were left behind during their escape.Stolen artworks found hidden
The two stolen Renoir paintings were discovered last week in a house in Clermont-l'Hérault, hidden in a "false wall" made of concrete blocks and plasterboard. According to Nicolas Bessone, the prosecutor of Marseille, the paintings were valued at four million euros, with one suffering a tear.Other recovered stolen artworks
Before this discovery, other stolen artworks had already been recovered. Le Cri by Edvard Munch, one of the most famous paintings in the world, was stolen and recovered twice. The most famous version was stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo in 1994 during the opening of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.Munch paintings stolen and recovered
Two men stole Le Cri and La Madone from the Munch Museum in Oslo in 2004. The paintings were found damaged two years later under mysterious circumstances. The thieves had left a postcard with a message criticizing the museum's security during the earlier theft.Da Vinci's La Joconde stolen
La Joconde by Leonardo da Vinci was stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris on August 21, 1911, by Vincenzo Perugia, an Italian glazier who had worked on the museum's glass installations. He kept the painting for two years before attempting to sell it, which led to his arrest and a seven-month prison sentence in Italy.Matisse engravings stolen in Brazil
Eight Matisse engravings were recovered this summer after being stolen from the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo on December 7, 2025. Two armed men stole thirteen engravings by Henri Matisse and five illustrations by Cândido Portinari. Nine months later, eight of the stolen Matisse works were found intact in the possession of an armed man.Jewelry stolen from Vienna museum
A piece of jewelry worth more than 50 million euros, La Saliera, made in the 16th century by Benvenuto Cellino for the French king François I, was stolen from the National Museum of Fine Arts in Vienna in 2003. A man climbed a scaffold during the museum's renovation and took the piece without triggering the alarm.Paintings hidden by a night guard
In Ajaccio, four paintings, including a Poussin, a Bellini, and a Mariotto di Nardo, disappeared from the Museum of Fine Arts in 2011. It was later discovered that the paintings had been hidden in the car of a night guard who had stolen them to obtain social housing. The works were found intact on a city parking lot in 2012 after an anonymous tip.
