2 Renoir paintings recovered from French museum heist, 6 arrested

Two Renoir paintings stolen from a museum in southern France last month have been found, and six people arrested, local authorities said Friday.

The mayor of the town housing the Renoir Museum, Bryan Masson, issued a statement praising investigators who tracked down the paintings and suspects. The statement did not elaborate on how they did so.

The regional prosecutor’s office and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The mayor announced a news conference for later Friday.

The two missing paintings were “Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano” and “Young Woman at the Well.”

The thieves sliced through a fence, climbed through a window and initially stole four valuable Renoir paintings in the heist last month, but abandoned two of the artworks as they fled, authorities said. Investigators launched a national search for the perpetrators.

The whole operation took less than three minutes and targeted the most valuable works in the Renoir Museum in the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, the regional prosecutor’s office said.

The theft conjured up painful memories of the spectacular heist of crown jewels at the Louvre Museum in Paris last year and revived calls for better security and better funding for the many cultural sites large and small that dot France’s landscape.

当地政府周五表示，上个月在法国南部一家博物馆被盗的两幅雷诺阿画作已被找到，六人被捕。

雷诺阿博物馆所在城镇的市长布莱恩·马森发表声明，赞扬了追踪到画作和嫌疑人的调查人员。声明并未详细说明他们是如何做到的。

地区检察官办公室和警方尚未对此事作出回应。市长宣布将于周五晚些时候召开新闻发布会。

丢失的两幅画作分别是《科隆纳·罗马诺夫人肖像》和《井边的年轻女子》。

据当局称，上个月，窃贼剪断围栏，爬窗而入，最初盗走了四幅价值连城的雷诺阿画作，但在逃跑时遗弃了其中两幅。调查人员已在全国范围内展开搜捕行动。

地区检察官办公室表示，整个行动耗时不到三分钟，目标是位于卡涅滨海镇的雷诺阿博物馆中最有价值的藏品。

这起盗窃案让人想起去年巴黎卢浮宫博物馆发生的惊天动地的皇冠珠宝劫案，并再次引发了人们对加强安保和增加资金投入的呼吁，这些安保措施旨在保护遍布法国各地的众多大大小小的文化遗址。