Three men stole a painting by French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir worth an estimated $136,000 to $182,000 from an auction house in Vienna Monday – removing it from its frame, Vienna police said.
The men "were clearly professionals" and appeared to act in a coordinated manner when they nabbed the work of art from the Dorotheum auction house in the Austrian capital, authorities said.
“Everything happened realy [sic.] quick and fast," Vienna police spokesman Patrick Maierhofer told ABC News in an email Thursday. "They just took out the painitng [sic.] of the frame and walked out."
The painting they took, Maierhofer said, was a 1895 depiction of a landscape called “Golfe, mer, falaises verte."
(MORE: Banksy print worth $45K stolen from Toronto art exhibit, caught on camera)Police released several surveillance images they said showed the three suspects. The men entered the auction house at 5:15 p.m., and grabbed the painting on the second floor before departing through different exits, police said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for Dorotheum, Doris Krumpl, said the auction house had no comment about the theft beyond the police report.
(MORE: Stolen painting worth estimated $160M found behind bedroom door)Maierhofer said that media attention had generated “calls with some hints," but no major developments. He added that investigators were working with international police organizations.