by Fedot Streletsky
[REGNUM] In Europe, criminals continue to hunt for world cultural treasures. Another high-profile robbery took place in Italy, in the province of Parma. Three paintings were stolen from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation, a private collection begun by art critic Luigi Magnani in the late 1970s.
This happened on the night of March 22-23, but information about it only leaked to the press now. Reportedly, the criminals acted quickly, efficiently, and in a coordinated manner. They broke down the front door of the villa where the collection was stored, entered, took the items, and left. It took them just three minutes.
They brought back three paintings in total, each of which is of considerable value. The first was "Fish" (1917) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, one of the late and untypical works of the French Impressionist, who specialized primarily in portraits and nudes (though the fish depicted are also unclothed).
| One would hope… |
| …the cherries also unclothed? |
Finally, the third is “Odalisque on a Terrace” (1922) by Henri Matisse, where he depicted the odalisque herself, holding a violin in her hand, and another figure basking in the sun.
The total value of the paintings is estimated at approximately 9 million euros. The first, by Renoir, is considered the most expensive, costing approximately 6 million euros.
Law enforcement agencies are currently reviewing CCTV footage and doing everything in their power to find the perpetrators and recover the stolen property. However, so far, they have only been able to establish with a high degree of certainty that there were four perpetrators.
No official statements or comments have been released from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation so far, as they are closed on Monday. However, the organization's representatives believe the theft is the work of an organized crime group, and that if the alarm hadn't been activated, the damage would have been even greater.
Art thefts have become commonplace in the Old World in recent years. Just this past January, the Silver Museum in Doesburg, Netherlands, was robbed. Two men broke into the church the museum occupies early in the morning, using a crowbar to remove the lock, smashed the display cases, and stole literally everything inside—an extensive collection of decorative silver objects from 20 countries.
According to the museum director, the thieves were interested not so much in the items themselves—forks, spoons, mustard bowls, and other premium utensils produced between 1700 and 1920—but in the materials from which they were made. This is because the prices of precious metals, including silver, continue to rise uncontrollably amid equally uncontrollably rising economic and geopolitical tensions around the world.
In the same place, in the Netherlands, a year ago, the Drenthe Museum in Assen was subjected to an even more brazen attack, while the exhibition “Dacia: Empire of Gold and Silver” was being held there, dedicated to the legacy of the Dacian Kingdom, which once occupied the territory of modern-day Romania.
On January 25, the day before the exhibition closed, three hooded men carrying a large travel bag, crowbars, and flashlights burst in in the middle of the night, after blowing up the gates. They escaped, taking with them Romanian national treasures, including the so-called Coțofenești Helmet—a ceremonial headdress made of electrum (a natural alloy of gold, silver, and copper) dating back to the second half of the 5th century BC.
Police soon arrested seven suspects, and their trial is scheduled for later this year. However, the artifacts remain missing. According to one theory, the heist was orchestrated by the Romanian biker gang Hardliners, whose leaders planned to trade the Coțofenești Helmet for the release of their accomplices from prison.
Regardless, the suspects remain stubbornly silent, and the Dutch government was forced to pay €5.7 million in compensation to the insurance company, which in turn paid the same amount to Romania. If the treasure is recovered, Romania will be required to return part of the money.
It's impossible not to mention the most high-profile theft case of recent years. On October 19, 2025, a group of individuals managed to rob one of the world's largest and most famous museums—the Louvre in Paris.
They did it in a manner that was both elegant and clumsy: using an extendable ladder installed on a truck they had stolen in advance, they climbed onto the balcony, pryed open a window with a power tool, grabbed 88 million euros worth of antiques, and retreated without bothering to cover their tracks.
Thanks to this, two suspected robbers were arrested within a week, and five more were caught a few days later. However, the priceless artifacts were no longer with them, and there is reason to believe that the tiara of Marie-Louise of Austria and several other pieces of jewelry belonging to French royalty had long since been dismantled and melted down.
Blame for the irretrievable loss, however, should be placed not only on those who directly committed the crime, but also on the museum's management, whose security system, as it turns out, was partly outdated, and partly was purely nominal.
But there's a silver lining to all this: thanks to the hype, the high jewelry art of French masters of the distant past has become public knowledge and part of contemporary popular culture. In particular, actress Tiyana Taylor, star of the Oscar-winning film "Battle by Battle," arrived at a Paris fashion show this January draped in replicas of those same precious pieces, causing a minor sensation.
The Louvre crime so profoundly stirred public awareness that it completely overshadowed other similar incidents that occurred in France that same fall. On September 4, Chinese porcelain worth €6.5 million was stolen from the Adrien Dubouché National Museum in Limoges.
On October 16, the National Museum of Natural History in Paris reported missing six gold nuggets weighing approximately 6 kg—worth approximately 1.5 million euros. And on the night of October 19–20—immediately after the Louvre robbery—2,000 gold and silver coins disappeared from the Denis Diderot House of Education in Langres.
Tellingly, only one of the cases listed—the nugget case—resulted in an arrest: a Chinese citizen attempted to fly from Barcelona to China with melted gold. Meanwhile, the porcelain and coins, along with their thieves, disappeared without a trace.