Thieves steal paintings from Renoir Museum on French Riviera

CAGNES-SUR-MER, France (NBC, KYMA) - Thieves stole four paintings from the Renoir museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera Tuesday, the local mayor said, with two being recovered.

The raiders broke into the museum a little before 6 a.m. Central European Summer Time, according to Mayor Bryan Masson.

Masson did not identify the paintings that were stolen. Renoir's most valuable works have fetched dozens of millions of dollars at auctions in the past.

The museum was created in 1960 in the mansion of the impressionist painter pierre-auguste Renoir on a hill in Cagnes-Sur-Mer, near Nice, where he died in 1919.

The collection on display in the museum includes 13 paintings from the master and some 40 sculptures, furniture and photographs.

Art thieves in Europe are committing more violent robberies and specialist gangs have been replaced by ad hoc opportunists recruited through social media, Pan-European police body Europol said last month.