Just minutes before 7 a.m. at Paris’s Museum of Modern Art this morning, a night watchman made a startling discovery: five paintings had been carefully removed from their frames, in a theft that could rank as one of art history’s priciest heists, according to the Associated Press. Before revising the record books, though, it’s worth noting that various reports have valued the total loss at anywhere from €100 million to €500 million ($126–635 million), as dealers and officials debate the price of works that had long been held in the public trust.

The snatched works are Henri Matisses La Pastorale (“Pastoral”); Georges Braques L'olivier pres de l'Estaque (“Olive Tree near Estaque”); Amedeo Modiglianis La femme a l'eventail (“Woman with a Fan”); Fernand Legers Nature-mort aux chandeliers (“Still Life with Chandeliers”); and Pablo Picassos Le pigeon aux petits-pois (“The Pigeon with the Peas”), which dates from the artist’s early Cubist period, which was recently championed by New York Times art critic Holland Cotter in an article about the recent $106.5-million sale of a later Picasso.

According to Parisian police, a masked trespasser was spotted on a video surveillance camera in the building, though the security system was disabled and the three night watchmen on duty did not report seeing anything suspicious. Officials have not released the names of any suspects, though they say they are investigating whether any accomplices aided the thief.

Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr, the director of the Palais de Tokyo museum in Paris, reportedly termed anyone involved as “fools” in a television interview, pointing out that every art dealer in the world will now be on the lookout for the works.

To view works that were stolen, click the photo gallery at left.