Stolen Cézanne, Renoir and Matisse recovered near Parma

Italian police have recovered three paintings by French masters Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse that were stolen from the Fondazione Magnani Rocca museum in Mamiano di Traversetolo, near Parma, in March, according to the Guardian. The artworks are collectively valued at more than $10 million, the New York Times reported.

On Friday, police released new CCTV footage of the theft, showing two masked burglars entering through a window and grabbing the paintings, the Guardian and BBC reported. The Italian military police said the art had been found five months after being taken in the nighttime heist, according to the New York Times.

Nine Moldovans are being investigated in connection with the theft, Al Jazeera reported. The recovery marks a rare success in the international art-crime arena, where stolen masterpieces often disappear for decades or are never found.

The Magnani Rocca Foundation sits in the Emilia-Romagna countryside, a region better known abroad for Parmigiano-Reggiano and supercars than for its art collections. The museum houses one of Italy's most significant private collections of modern French painting, a legacy of the late collector Luigi Magnani, which makes the theft and recovery a matter of regional cultural pride.

The heist occurred in March, and the investigation unfolded over five months before the artworks were located, the Guardian reported. The NYT noted that prosecutors announced the arrests on Friday, the same day the police released the CCTV footage. The BBC's video coverage shows the masked intruders moving quickly through the gallery, underscoring the brazenness of the operation.

Le Monde reported the paintings were worth more than €10 million combined, a figure that aligns with the $10 million valuation cited by the Guardian and the NYT. The recovery is a boost for the Carabinieri's art squad, which has a long track record of repatriating stolen Italian heritage, though the foreign press has not detailed the circumstances of the find.

For Emilia-Romagna, the return of the works means the museum can reopen its galleries to the summer visitors who flock to the region's food and motor valleys. The Fondazione Magnani Rocca, set in a neoclassical villa, is a stop on the itineraries of international art lovers, and the recovery restores a chapter of the region's cultural offer that had been closed since March.