[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-1272070306.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tFour masked men stole three artworks, one each by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul C\u00e9zanne, and Henri Matisse, from a private art museum in Italy last week, according to a report by the Bologna-based newspaper\u00a0La Repubblica<\/em>. The paintings are reportedly worth millions of dollars.<\/p>\n \n\tThe heist, which took place on the night of March 22, lasted just three minutes. It happened at the Magnani Rocca Foundation, located in a villa outside Parma, and involved the theft of C\u00e9zanne\u2019s Still Life with Cherries<\/em> (1890), Renoir\u2019s late-career Les Poissons<\/em> (1917), and Matisse\u2019s Odalisque on the Terrace<\/em> (1922).<\/p>\n \n\tA report by the BBC noted that Les Poissons<\/em>, the sole oil on canvas, is worth the lion\u2019s share of the \u20ac9 million ($10 million), valued at around \u20ac6 million ($6.9 million). The C\u00e9zanne and Matisse are both works on paper: a pencil and watercolor on paper and an aquatint on paper, respectively.<\/p>\n La Repubblica<\/em> reported that the thieves gained access to the villa by forcing open one of its main doors, and that they left behind a fourth work that was intended to be part of the loot, likely having been hindered by the museum\u2019s alarm system.<\/p>\n \n\tThe investigation is currently being conducted jointly by the Parma Carabinieri and the Carabinieri Unit for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. News of the heist and the confirmation of the three stolen works was only publicly released on Sunday.<\/p>\n \n\tIn a statement to La Repubblica<\/em>, the Magnani Rocca Foundation said the heist occurred \u201cwithin a timeframe of less than three minutes\u2014not in an impromptu manner, but rather within a structured and organized framework,\u201d and that a much larger theft did not occur \u201cthanks to the activation of the security systems and the swift intervention of the in-house security team, the Carabinieri, and the private security firm, to whom we extend our most sincere thanks for their courage and promptness.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe foundation has not commented further on the heist and has maintained its usual opening hours. Its current show, on view through June 28, is titled \u201cSymbolism in Italy: Origins and Developments of a New Aesthetic (1883\u20131915).\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAlso known as the \u201cVilla of Masterpieces,\u201d the Magnani Rocca Foundation is home to the collection of Italia critic Luigi Magnani, who established the foundation, named after his parents, in 1977 before his death in 1984. In addition to the work of Renoir, C\u00e9zanne, and Matisse, his holdings also include pieces by Titian, D\u00fcrer, Rubens, Goya, Canova, and de Chirico.<\/p>\n \n\tThe last year has seen an uptick in art theft from museums, with the most prominent of these being a daytime theft of crown jewels from the Louvre in Paris. The objects, which were valued at $102 million, were stolen in eight minutes, with thieves accessing a window and escaping via a cherry picker. The whereabouts of the stolen jewels are still unknown, but the fallout has been severe, with Louvre director Laurence des Cars ultimately resigning in February 2026.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/magnani-rocca-foundation-heist-art-theft-italy-1234779384\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-1272070306.jpg?w=1024″] Four masked men stole three artworks, one each by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul C\u00e9zanne, and Henri Matisse, from a private art museum in Italy last week, according to a report by the Bologna-based newspaper\u00a0La Repubblica. The paintings are reportedly worth millions of dollars. The heist, which took place on the night of March […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1856497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1856497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1856497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1856497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1856497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}