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After a major manhunt, at least five people have been arrested in France in connection with the theft of four artworks from the Renoir Museum on 8 September.
The two suspected burglars are believed to be among those arrested.
French newspaper Nice-Matin, which first reported the arrests, said the suspects could be linked to an organised criminal gang.
The theft took place at dawn on 8 September, when a group of thieves described as “well-equipped” and “well-informed” broke into the museum through its gardens, according to the town’s mayor, Bryan Masson.
They sliced through a fence and entered the museum through the ground floor by smashing a window, and then cut the clips securing the artwork frames with an electric saw, Masson said in remarks carried out by local broadcaster Ici Azur.
According to Masson, the pair were “spotted thanks to the town’s video surveillance cameras”. Initial reports estimated the stolen haul to be worth up to €9 million euros.
In a written statement obtained by the AP news agency, two of the stolen works were found left in the museum garden as the thieves fled from police who had been alerted by the alarm. But the two others – Portrait of Madame Colonna Romano (1910), and Young Woman at the Well (1886) – are still missing.
The Renoir Museum, located between Cannes and Nice, is the Mediterranean coastal town most famous attraction. Open since 1960, it was the painter’s last home before his death in 1919 from pulmonary congestion when he was 78-years old.