Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse art among items stolen in Italian job

Paintings by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse worth millions of euros were stolen in a heist on a museum near the Italian city of Parma, police say. Four masked men entered the Magnani Rocca Foundation villa on 22 March, police said, making off with Les Poissons by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Still Life with Cherries by Paul Cézanne and Odalisque on the Terrace by Henri Matisse. The gang was in and out in three minutes, Italian media outlets have reported, and was only interrupted by the museum's alarm system, preventing them from stealing more. The institution is the latest to be subject to a heist, following the brazen daylight robbery of priceless jewels from the Louvre in Paris last October. The thieves involved in the robbery forced their way through the main door to the Villa dei Capolavori, nestled in the Parma countryside, and nabbed the paintings from the French Room on the building's first floor, Italian media outlets have reported. The foundation was quoted as saying the gang appeared "structured and organised", and seemed to have intended on stealing more were it not for the private collection's alarms going off and police being called. The criminals escaped by climbing over a fe