Police in France are searching for two thieves who stole two paintings by renowned French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir from a museum in southern France, abandoning two other stolen artworks in the museum garden as they fled.

The burglary took place at the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, where the intruders initially removed four paintings. However, alarms and police sirens reportedly forced them to flee in haste, leaving behind two of the works.

The two paintings still missing are “Madame Colonna Romano” and “Jeune femme au puits”, which depicts a woman at a well.

The recovered paintings are “Madame Pichon” and “Coco lisant”, a portrait of Renoir's young son Claude reading.

Thieves used metal saw to remove paintings

Bryan Masson, the mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer, said the burglars appeared to have planned the operation carefully and came prepared with equipment.

According to him, the thieves used a metal saw to cut through the mechanisms holding the frames of Renoir's paintings.

However, the museum's security system and police sirens disrupted the operation before they could take all four artworks away.

The mayor's office had earlier estimated the value of the stolen works at around 9 million euros, or approximately $10 million.

Renoir's former home targeted

The museum is located around a half-hour drive from Nice and was Renoir's final home before his death in 1919 at the age of 78.

Its collection includes nine paintings by the celebrated artist, along with sculptures, personal objects and furniture associated with him. Among the items preserved at the museum are Renoir's easel and wheelchair.

Following the latest theft, Masson called for increased funding to strengthen security at museums across France.

"It is the heritage of all French people that has today become the target of gangs," he said.

France museums face string of art thefts

The Renoir Museum burglary comes amid a series of high-profile thefts targeting museums in France.

The agency copy also refers to the daylight theft of crown jewellery valued at around $100 million from the Louvre in Paris last year. Four suspects in that case have been arrested, although the stolen jewellery has not been recovered.

In another major recovery, Italian police in August said they had found paintings by Renoir, Cezanne and Matisse worth more than $10.4 million that were stolen during a rapid museum heist in March.

France has also witnessed some of history's most famous art thefts. Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 by an Italian glazier who had worked at the museum. The painting was recovered two years later after he attempted to sell it.

With AFP inputs