More than fifty-two years ago, “Roses dans une Verre” (also known as “Roses in a Vase”) by August Renoir, as well as fourteen other paintings and a lithograph, was stolen from the Musée Albert André, a small museum in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, in southern France. Similar to the “Skylight Caper” artwork theft in Montreal, Canada just two months earlier and the theft of Cézanne’s Paysage d’Auvers-sur-Oise from the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, England in 2000, the thieves gained access to the museum through the roof.
A Little History About Where The Theft Happened
The museum was initially established in 1868 by a Bagnols-sur-Cèze resident, Léon Alègre. At the time of its opening, the museum was an “encyclopedic” collection housed in eight rooms on the third floor of the Hotel de Ville. Juxtaposed in the museum were paintings, stuffed animals, fossils, steam engines and ancient artifacts.
In 1917, the French painter Albert André became the curator of the museum. André’s friends included Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet and painters from the Fauvist movement, such as Louis Valtat, Georges d’Espagnat and Maximilien Luce, and the Nabis artists Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard. André and Valtat, with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, had collaborated in the creation of the décor for the Theatre de L’Oeuvre in Paris in 1894. That same year, André exhibited paintings at the Salon des Indépendants where he met Renoir, with whom he developed a close relationship.
In 1919, the year of Renoir’s death, André, who was Renoir’s executor, produced “one of the most accurate contemporary accounts” of Renoir’s work. Two years later, André organized a retrospective of Renoir’s work at the Parisian gallery of Paul Durand-Ruel, one of the most influential contemporary art dealers in Paris in the second half of the 19th century.
After a fire at the Hotel de Ville destroyed much of the collection in 1923, André, with the help of his artist friends, transformed the museum into the first French provincial contemporary art museum. Bonnard, Monet, Marquet, Signac, Valtat and Durand-Ruel all offered him works for his “museum of empty walls.” As a result, the museum is now often described as a “museum of friendship.”
Albert André was also good friends with George Besson, an art critic and collector and the founder of Cahiers d’Aujourd’hui, a French art magazine published from 1912 to 1924. Besson’s reputation as a collector is borne out by portraits of Besson and his wife Adèle by Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse and Renoir.
In 1971, at the age of 89, Besson and Adèle made the decision to bequeath their art collection to the nation of France, the Musée de Besançon and the Musée Albert André. Paintings given to the Musée Albert André by the Bessons included “Le 14 Juillet au Havre” (July 14 in Le Havre) by Albert Marquet, “La Fenêtre Ouverte” (The Open Window) by Henri Matisse, “Portrait d’Adèle Besson” by Kees Van Gongen and “Bouquet de Fleurs des Champs” (Bouquet of Wildflowers) by Pierre Bonnard.
Today, the Musee Albert-André, which is free to visitors, also displays works from the 1950’s by artists such as Guy Bardone, René Génis and Paul Guiramand, offering a “new wave of figurative painting . . . combin[ing] tradition and modernity in the jubilation of color.”
How the Theft Happened
On the afternoon of November 12, 1972, the sole guard of the Hotel de Ville (the building housing the museum and the town hall) discovered that the Musée Albert André had been robbed sometime during the night. He found frames and stretchers, without the paintings that they had held, scattered on the floor, and a rope ladder descending from a hole in the attic. At that time, only the locks on the doors of the town hall were alarmed. Ironically, the city council had just voted to install a new security system the following month.
The thieves were able to access the roof of the Hotel de Ville through the roofs of neighboring buildings that housed a tax office and school. Once on the town hall roof, they drilled a hole into the attic and lowered a rope ladder into the room holding the Albert André collection. After they removed the artwork from the walls, they removed the frames and most likely rolled up the art to transport it out of the building in the same way they had come in.
The stolen art, worth approximately five million francs at the time, included Renoir’s “Roses dans une Verre” and:
- “Le Petit Café 1900” and “Le Jardin à Vernonnet” by Pierre Bonnard
- “Les Pâturages” by Eugène Boudin,
- Lithograph of “Baigneuses” by Paul Cézanne,
- “Orchestre avec un Nu” and “Composition” by Raoul Dufy
- “La Chapelle à Paris” by Maximilien Luce
- “Le Port de Marseille” by Albert Marquet
- “Vue de Saint-Tropez” by Henri Matisse
- “Reflets sur L’eau” (1917) by Claude Monet
- “La Sortie du Port de Boulogne” by Berthe Morisot,
- “Champs” by Camille Pissarro,
- “Portrait de Madame André” by Pierre-August Renoir
- “Le Port d’Honfleur” by Edouard Vuillard
Fortunately, the thieves were not able to enter the rooms holding the Besson collection and none of those paintings were stolen.
To date, no information has been uncovered about the location of the Renoir painting or the other stolen artwork, or about the identity of the thieves. All of the stolen art is listed with Interpol.
How to Identify This Missing Piece of History
The oil painting, “Roses dans une Verre,” was created by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1905, and measures 38 centimeters high by 31 centimeters wide.
Why This Missing Piece of History is Important
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, born in Limoges, France in 1841, is considered to be one of the leaders of the French Impressionist movement. A contemporary of Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley, he is known as a vibrant colorist who captured the movement of light and shadow with soft brushwork, but also as an artist with a well-developed sense of composition and structure.His art is perhaps best distinguished from that of his peers by the sense of informality and intimacy with which he often imbued his work.
While he may be best known for his sensual nudes and charming domestic scenes and portraits, Renoir was much influenced by the work of Eugène Delacroix, Camille Corot, Edouard Manet and Camille Pissarro, as well as earlier artists such as Raphael, Rubens and Titian. That influence is particularly seen in Renoir’s work from the 1880’s into the 20th century, where he displayed a monumental, classically inspired style.
Renoir had a significant influence on other artists. Henri Matisse once said of Renoir: “I’ve always felt that recorded time holds no nobler story, no more heroic, no more magnificent achievement than that of Renoir.” Later, Matisse described Renoir’s last years: “Even as his body was going into decline, his soul seemed to become stronger and to express itself with a more radiant facility.” Pablo Picasso, too, held Renoir in high esteem, appreciating Renoir’s later works as a departure from the accepted norms of the art world at the time.
What to Do if You Know Where This Missing Piece of History Is
If you recognize Renoir’s painting “Roses dans une Verre” or any of the other listed paintings stolen from the Musée Albert André, have any information about any of them, or know any of their whereabouts, please call us at 1-202-240-2355 or send us an email at contact@arguscpc.com.