Thieves took four artworks but it is thought they dropped two in museum garden as they fled

French police are hunting two thieves who escaped with two Renoir paintings from a museum on the French Riviera after breaking in through a hole cut in its garden fence.

Bryan Masson, the mayor of Cagnes-sur-Mer, about 10 miles west of Nice, said the pair appeared to have been “well equipped and well informed” about the museum, which houses works by the French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in his former home.