With the greatly infamous Louvre heists still fresh and lingering in October, and more thefts taking place earlier in 2024 in various museums, stolen pieces have been on many people’s minds recently. Though maybe for a bad reason. Just recently, on the night of March 22nd, thieves stole three paintings from a museum called the Magnani Rocca Foundation, founded in 1977, in Northern Italy.
On the night of the thefts, the thieves, bearing masks, forced open the front door of the museum. They then made their way through the first floor to the “French Room”, and subsequently stole the paintings. The alarm soon went off, preventing the thieves from stealing anything else. The thieves dashed out of the museum, through the gardens and over the fence, their heist took a mere three minutes.
The stolen pieces were: Les Poissons by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Still Life with Cherries by Paul Cézanne, and Odalisque on the Terrace by Henri Matisse. The first piece, which is by Renoir, is an oil painting that was estimated to have been painted around 1917. It also is worth around €6 million, which is more than $7 million. The next piece, which is by Cézanne, is said to have been completed around 1890. While Renoir was one of the leading painters of the Impressionist movement, Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries is one of his post-Impressionist still-lifes featuring cherries, though this one utilizes watercolor, a technique he adopted later in his life. The final piece, Odalisque on the Terrace, was painted in 1922, which shows the image of two figures, one with a violin, and the other basking in the sun. The paintings had a total estimated worth of €9 million, which is over $10 million.
The heist was concealed for a while, in hopes to catch the criminals if they were to come back. The thefts are being investigated by the Carabinieri, an Italian law enforcement agency that handles foreign and domestic policing matters, and the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Bologna. So far no one has been arrested for the crime. Because of the calm, structured, and controlled heist, the museum has suspicions that organised crime might be involved. The museum is continuing to run as usual, however.
The nature and timing of this crime speaks upon a common theme that is starting to form. Since this robbery is only a mere six months after the Louvre, this shows the rise of these sorts of thefts, especially as modern technology and things like cryptocurrencies make it much more simple to steal and launder pieces like these.