Police are examining videos from the museum's surveillance system and neighboring businesses, authorities specified. The theft occurred the night of March 22-23. Paintings by Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse, valued at several million dollars, were stolen from a museum near Parma, Italy, reported local police. Four masked individuals entered the Villa of the Magnani Rocca Foundation on March 22 and took 'The Fishes' by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 'Still Life with Cherries' by Paul Cézanne, and 'Odalisque on the Terrace' by Henri Matisse, authorities said. The gang executed the theft in just three minutes, and were only interrupted by the museum's alarm system, which prevented them from taking more works of art. The institution is the latest to suffer a theft, following the brazen daylight looting of invaluable jewels from the Louvre Museum in Paris last October. In Italy, the thieves forced open the main gate of the Villa dei Capolavori (or Villa of the Masterpieces), located in the Parma countryside, and made off with the paintings from the French Room on the first floor of the building, according to the Italian press. 'Organized' gang of thieves. The foundation stated that the gang appeared 'structured and organized' and apparently intended to steal more works of art, had it not been for the alarm from the private collection and the call to the police. The criminals escaped through the museum gardens by climbing a fence, according to the public broadcaster TGR, the first to report the theft. The stolen paintings are estimated to have a combined value of $10.35 million, with only 'The Fishes' valued at $6.9 million, making this art theft one of the most significant in Italy in recent years. Renoir was one of the main artists of the Impressionist movement and completed the oil on canvas painting 'The Fishes' around 1917. Cézanne's work, completed around 1890, is one of several still lifes with cherries produced by the Post-Impressionist painter, although the stolen one is rare because it is painted in watercolor, a medium the artist only adopted at the end of his life, according to the foundation. 'Odalisque on the Terrace', painted by Matisse in 1912, depicts two figures: one reclining in the sun and another holding a violin. The crime is being investigated by the Italian Carabinieri and the Bologna Heritage Protection Unit.
