Stolen art has history of heist

PARIS – Last time, it was a museum curator who staged a Hollywood-worthy theft of Impressionist paintings by Monet and Sisley before landing in a French prison. This time, the five masked gunmen who snatched the canvases are still at large.

As a handful of visitors milled about the Museum of Fine Arts in Nice on the French Riviera on Sunday, the five men dashed in and made off with four paintings worth about $1.4 million, police said.

The stolen paintings were French master Claude Monet’s 1897 “Cliffs near Dieppe,” fellow Impressionist Alfred Sisley’s 1890 “Lane of Poplars near Moret,” and Flemish master Pieter Bruegel’s 17th century “Allegory of Earth” and “Allegory of Water,” said the museum’s deputy curator, Patricia Grimaud.

The first two had vanished from the museum’s walls before: In 1998, then-curator Jean Forneris staged a heist in which masked, armed men took him “hostage” and forced him to take them to the museum. The men overpowered guards and tied up the staff members before fleeing with the paintings – in the curator’s car.

The Sisley is on its third theft – it was also stolen in 1978 while it was on loan at an exhibit in Marseille.