The curator of the Nice Fine Arts Museum was jailed following the theft on September 21st 1998 of two major works by Impressionist painters Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley.Jean Forneris, the curator of the museum, had told police that he had been held hostage at his home by two armed men who had forced him to go to the museum where they gagged the warden and an employee before fleeing with a 1897 painting by Monet, Cliffs near Dieppe, and another by Sisley, a path with poplars, painted in 1890. Police managed to unveil an incredible story after interrogating the curator whose explanations appeared somewhat confused. Police first thought the theft had been carried out by professional gangsters acting on behalf of a mad collector willing to get hold of the two paintings estimated at over US $ 6 million but after two days of intense questioning Jean Forneris, 50, admitted he knew one of the thieves,a 36-year-old man who was a close friend.
The latter, facing dire financialproblems, had approached him recently to obtain an important sum of money.
The curator said he had been moved by the situation faced by his friend who had lost his father and one of his brothers and had just divorced his wife.
All the more, he was unemployed and without financial resources.
He added that he felt trapped and had accepted to organise the theft at the museum.
Police managed to arrest the thief and his accomplice on September 30th and found the two paintings hidden in a yacht anchored in the port of Nice.
They added that the thieves were amateurs who had no preconceived idea about how to dispose of the two paintings. As for the curator his career isnow in wrecks.
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