Three minutes. That’s what it took.

Sometime between late night and early morning on March 22, four masked men forced the main door of the Villa dei Capolavori in Mamiano di Traversetolo, a patch of Parma countryside better known for its peacocks than its crime scenes. They climbed to the first floor, entered the French Room, and helped themselves to three paintings: Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Les Poissons, Paul Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries, and Henri Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace. Then they climbed a fence and disappeared.

The combined haul is estimated at roughly €9 million, according to regional broadcaster TGR, with the Renoir alone accounting for €6 million. The foundation described the gang as “structured and organised” — and apparently ambitious, because the museum’s alarm system interrupted them before they could take more. Surveillance footage has been acquired by investigators.

Italy’s Carabinieri and the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Bologna are handling the case. News of the theft wasn’t made public until Sunday, nearly a week after it happened.

The stolen works are not interchangeable commodities. Les Poissons, an oil on canvas completed around 1917 during Renoir’s late period, is one of the few works by the Impressionist permanently on public display in Italy. The Cézanne — a watercolour on paper from around 1890, depicting a cup and plate of cherries — belongs to a medium the artist only embraced in his final years. The Matisse, an aquatint from 1922, shows two figures on a terrace, one reclining in sunlight while another holds a violin. These are paintings a fence cannot easily move. They are too recognisable, too well-documented, too hot. Which raises the question that always hangs over museum heists: what exactly is the plan?

Art theft has plagued Italian institutions for decades, and the Magnani Rocca Foundation — housed in the former residence of collector and composer Luigi Magnani, who died in 1984 — joins a growing list. Last October, priceless jewels were snatched from the Louvre in a brazen daylight robbery. The Parma heist was quieter, faster, and so far equally unsolved.

The villa remains open. Its white and coloured peacocks are still in the garden. The French Room is a little emptier.

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