Six people arrested as Renoir paintings stolen from Riviera museum recovered

PARIS - Two Renoir paintings worth millions of dollars that were stolen from a museum on the French Riviera a month ago have been recovered and six suspects have been arrested, the local mayor said on Friday.

Thieves had broken into the grounds of the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer early in the morning of September 8 through a hole cut in a garden fence and entered through a window.

The two paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, an Impressionist whose works have fetched tens of millions of dollars at auction, were "Madame Colonna Romano" and "Young Woman at the Well". Both belong to Paris' Orsay Museum and were on loan.

"This news is a source of immense joy and a great relief for the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer and its residents," mayor Bryan Masson said in a statement.

The Marseille public prosecutor's office did not immediately respond to questions about how the paintings had been recovered. The mayor scheduled a press conference on Thursday afternoon then cancelled it so as not to interfere with the investigation.

The thieves had also snatched two other paintings, "Madame Pichon" and "Coco Reading", a portrayal of Claude, Renoir's young son. But they dropped them in the gardens as police, alerted by alarms, arrived and gave chase.

- Dominique Vidalon, Inti Landauro; Editing by Kevin Liffey/Reuters