Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Police in Vienna, Austria, said they're searching for three men accused of walking into an auction house and stealing a painting by French master Pierre-Auguste Renoir valued at more than $131,000.
The theft from the Dorotheum auction house happened Monday evening. The painting, titled Golfe, mer, falaises vertes, was set to be sold Wednesday.
The three men took the painting out of its frame without cutting the canvas, Vienna police said.
"The men left the site through different exits and fled," a police spokesman said.
Security cameras at the auction house captured the three suspects, who apparently made little effort to hide their faces.
Dealers expected the lesser-known painting to sell for between $131,000 and $181,000, a far cry from the millions some of the artist's paintings go for. A Japanese millionaire set the record price for a Renoir painting in 1990 with the purchase of Au Moulin De La Galette for $78.1 million.
