Italian authorities have announced the successful recovery of three paintings by renowned French artists Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, which were stolen from a museum near Parma in March. The Carabinieri officers discovered the artworks in an apartment in Parma and have initiated an investigation involving nine Moldovan nationals linked to the theft. The paintings, valued at over €9 million ($14.4 million), were taken from the Fondazione Magnani Rocca museum in Mamiano di Traversetolo. The recovered pieces include Cezanne’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 captured the swift theft, showing two masked burglars entering through a window, swiftly removing the paintings from the wall, and exiting the premises within three minutes. The Fondazione Magnani Rocca, renowned for housing a private collection curated by the late music critic Luigi Magnani, features works by esteemed artists such as Titian, Francisco Goya, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Claude Monet, Peter Paul Rubens, and Giorgio Morandi.