French authorities have recovered two paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir that were stolen from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer just over a month earlier, and six suspects are now in custody, the town's mayor announced on Friday, October 9. The canvases, Madame Colonna Romano and Young Woman at the Well, disappeared in the early hours of September 8 when intruders cut through a garden fence and climbed in through a window. Both works belong to the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and were on loan to the Riviera museum, which occupies Les Collettes, the estate where Renoir spent his final years and where he died in 1919. Two other paintings were also seized that night but were abandoned in the gardens as police, alerted by alarms, arrived and gave chase. The mayor described the recovery as an immense joy and a great relief for the town, noting that the two recovered works were far more than art objects: they are part of the city's history, its cultural heritage and the legacy Renoir left to Cagnes-sur-Mer. Details of how the paintings were traced remain undisclosed. The Marseille prosecutor's office did not immediately answer questions about the operation, and a planned press conference was called off so as not to jeopardize the investigation. The episode is the second museum theft in France to make international headlines this autumn. Days earlier, a bejewelled Salvador Dali bronze book cover was stolen from a private museum in Issoire, renewing debate about security at smaller regional institutions. The swift recovery of the Renoirs, by contrast, offers a rare positive turn in a case that had alarmed curators across the country.