On the night of March 22-23, 2026, the private museum of the Magnani Rocca Foundation, located in a picturesque villa in Mammiano di Traversetolo (Parma province, northern Italy), became the target of a daring heist. Four masked individuals broke into the building and stole three valuable paintings by French masters in just three minutes: "Fish" by Auguste Renoir, "Still Life with Cherries" by Paul Cézanne, and "Odalisque on a Terrace" by Henri Matisse. According to BBC estimates, the total value of the stolen works is approximately 9 million euros.
History of the Magnani Rocca Foundation
The history of the foundation is inextricably linked to Luigi Magnani. Born in Reggio nell'Emilia in 1906, he devoted his life to musicology, art criticism, and collecting. In 1941, the family acquired a picturesque estate in Mammiano, which housed an impressive collection. After Luigi's death in 1984, management passed to his heirs, and in 1990, the villa was opened to the public.
The collection spans several centuries of European painting: Gentile da Fabriano, Filippo Lippi, Carpaccio, Dürer, Titian, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Goya. Particularly noteworthy are the works of the 19th-20th centuries: Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, de Chirico, de Pisis, and about fifty works by Morandi.
Three Stolen Paintings
"Fish" ("Les Poissons") by Renoir — created in 1917, when the artist was 76 years old. Despite severe rheumatoid arthritis, Renoir continued to create. Its value is estimated at approximately 6 million euros.
"Still Life with Cherries" — created between 1885 and 1887, reflects Cézanne's period of work in Aix-en-Provence, where he developed his unique method based on the geometry of form.
"Odalisque on a Terrace" — painted in 1922, when Matisse lived in Nice. The series of works with odalisques became one of the most recognizable in the artist's Nice period.
Investigation
The official estimate of the time spent on the theft is just three minutes. The criminals' actions have been described as "structured and organized," with no improvisation. The investigation is being conducted by the carabinieri of Parma province in collaboration with the specialized TPC unit from Bologna. The three stolen canvases have already been entered into the official database of stolen artworks.
The heist in Mammiano di Traversetolo became another episode in Italy's long history of art theft. In 2024, the TPC unit returned more than 80,000 cultural artifacts and arrested 256 people.