Renoir paintings stolen from provincial French museum

PARIS (AP) — Valuable Renoir paintings were stolen early Tuesday from a small museum on the French Riviera, and investigators were hunting for the suspected thieves, police said.

Surveillance camera footage identified thieves entering the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer and stealing four paintings worth millions of euros, the town’s mayor, Bryan Masson, said in a statement. The thieves dropped one of the paintings as they fled, the statement said.

An official with the regional police administration confirmed the theft and the hunt for suspects, and said an investigation is underway. The official, who wasn't authorized to be publicly named according to police policy, couldn't confirm the value of the paintings.

The theft came after the spectacular heist of crown jewels at the Louvre Museum in Paris last year.

The Renoir Museum is housed in the last home of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, where he lived before his death in 1919. It's the most famous attraction in Cagnes-sur-Mer, situated between Cannes and Nice on the Mediterranean coast.