On March 22nd, thieves broke into the Magnani Rocca Foundation outside of Parma, Italy, stealing works by Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cézanne. Italian officials confirmed the robbery on March 30th, as reported by the New York Times.
The stolen works included Renoir’s Les Poissons, an Impressionist painting of three fish on a platter; Cézanne’s Tasse et Plat de Cerises, a still life of a plate of cherries; and Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace, which portrays a nude woman playing the violin to a sleeping Sultan. The works are worth about €9 million ($10.34 million), according to the Italian public broadcaster Rai. This figure has yet to be confirmed by the police.
The Magnani Rocca Foundation was founded by Italian artist Luigi Magnani in 1977. The private art museum is housed in a 19th-century villa in Mamiano di Traversetolo, Italy. It opened to the public in 1990. Other artists featured in its collection include Titian, Francisco de Goya, Anthony van Dyck, and Claude Monet. The museum has remained open during the period following the robbery.
According to the police, the thieves broke into the building through the main entrance in the middle of the night, using a crowbar. The entire heist took around three minutes, and the thieves escaped by crossing the museum gardens. Italian news outlet La Repubblica reported that the thieves left a fourth artwork; however, the title of this work remains unreported.
This robbery is the latest in a string of high-profile museum heists across Europe. Most notably, thieves successfully broke into the Louvre in Paris this past October, making off with more than €88 million ($100.83 million) of jewelry. In January 2025, thieves deployed explosives to steal €4.3 million ($4.9 million) worth of gold artifacts from the Drents Museums in the Netherlands.
Interpol reported that similar heists have increased in recent years, citing how technological advancements make it easier to launder stolen property. “We’re in the smash and grab period, where criminals are taking sledgehammers and forcing their way through doors,” Christopher Marinello, a lawyer and the chief executive of Art Recovery International, told the Guardian. “You can break into anything in three minutes with a ski mask because the CCTV is going to capture what? Nothing.”
