Italian police recover three stolen masterpieces worth €9.02m
Italian authorities recovered three artworks by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth €9.02m that were stolen in March from a private museum near Parma, the Carabinieri’s art squad said on Friday.
Source: South China Morning Post · August 16, 2026 at 5:44 PM · AI-assisted report
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KUALA LUMPUR, 15 AUGUST 2026 —
Italian authorities recovered three artworks by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth €9.02m that were stolen in March from a private museum near Parma, the Carabinieri’s art squad said on Friday.
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The recovered pieces are Renoir’s Fish valued at €3m, Cezanne’s Still Life with Cherries at €6m and Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace at €20,000, according to the statement. The works were found during searches ordered by prosecutors but no details were provided.
The heist at the Magnani Rocca Foundation took place on the night of March 22–23, with thieves forcing the entrance door and escaping within three minutes, police said. The alarm was triggered but the intruders still fled across the museum gardens. The foundation, established in 1977, was founded by art historian Luigi Magnani and holds works by Dürer, Rubens, Van Dyck, Goya and Monet.
Meanwhile, Brazilian police said late on Thursday they had recovered eight stolen Matisse prints worth more than 1 million reais (US$193,000) in Sao Bernardo do Campo outside Sao Paulo. The prints, valued individually between US$10,000 and US$50,000, were made for Matisse’s 1947 artbook Jazz and named Le Clown, Le Cirque, Monsieur Loyal, Cauchemar de L’Eléphant Blanc, Le Codomas, La Nageuse Dans L’Aquarium, L’Avaleur de Sabres and Le Cowboy.
The Matisse prints were found during an apartment raid that also led to the arrest of one man on suspicion of holding the works for another suspect detained in April as part of an unrelated art theft probe.
Brazilian police said the recovery marked a breakthrough in a case dating back to December 2025, when two intruders stole a total of 13 pieces from Sao Paulo’s Mario de Andrade library; five works by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari remain missing.
The Italian and Brazilian recoveries follow a wave of high-profile museum heists across Europe, including the theft of French crown jewels and other items valued at €88m from the Louvre in Paris last October. Police did not link the two operations.