Stolen Renoir paintings found behind wall in France following arrests 

Two paintings by the impressionist master Renoir which were stolen from a French museum last month have been found damaged behind a false wall in a private home after police made several arrests ahead of what prosecutors say was an imminent second heist.

Marseille prosecutor Nicolas Bessone said six suspects were arrested on Wednesday after authorities discovered they were planning to target the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, home to one of Europe’s largest collections of modern art.

Bessone said the arrests were prompted by the “very strong suspicion that another heist was imminent”.

“We were very clearly looking at the repetition of a criminal scheme”, said Eric Antonetti, the head of the Alpes-Maritimes judicial police.

On September 8, thieves used an electric saw to cut through a fence to enter the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, according to investigators.

An alarm sounded and police officers arrived four minutes later, a swift response that “apparently caused the perpetrators to panic,” Bessone said.

The stolen works, “Madame Colonna Romano” and “Young Woman at the Well” by impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, were valued at about 4.2m euros ($4.7m), Bessone said.

The thieves also attempted to steal two other Renoir paintings, “Madame Pichon” and “Coco Reading”, which depicts Renoir’s young ‌son ‌Claude. They abandoned them in the museum gardens while fleeing police.

“As they fled, they were unable to take all four paintings and abandoned two of them, which were later found in a protective sleeve,” he said.

The paintings were found hidden behind a false wall in a house on Friday. Both works were damaged and will need ⁠restoration. One of the paintings, “Madame Colonna Romano”, had been torn.

“These two paintings are not simply works of art. They are part of our city’s history,” Bryan Masson, the mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nice, said on Friday. “Knowing they have been recovered is an immense relief.”

The recovery came almost exactly one month ⁠after the theft, following an investigation that used ⁠DNA evidence, mobile phone geolocation data and surveillance video.

The two key suspects include a 29-year-old, who was charged after investigators recovered DNA from a bag left behind during the getaway.

They ⁠were charged with organised theft and other offences. A third man, accused of hiding the paintings, was charged with organised handling of stolen goods.

A fourth suspect, who investigators say was approached about buying the artworks, was charged ‌with handling stolen goods and taking part in a criminal conspiracy.

Bessone said the suspects had denied planning a second museum raid, but he added that he did “not believe the principal suspect visited that ‌museum simply out of a love of art”.