Does Madonna Own a Painting that Went Missing During WWI?
French city believes Madonna may own artwork lost in war - and asks for loan https://t.co/SSZpPPs5dN
- The Guardian (@guardian) January 17, 2023
The mayor of Amiens, in northern France, is reaching out to Madonna and asking her for a favour: to loan a Jérôme-Martin Langlois painting to the town after it went missing from their museum during WWI.
Per the source:
The oil painting, commissioned by Louis XVIII to hang in the Salon of Diane at the Palace of Versailles and completed in 1822, was acquired by the French republic in 1873. It was exhibited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts - now the Musée de Picardie - in Amiens from 1878 but was thought to have been destroyed when the city was bombed in 1918.
Madonna paid $1.3m for the painting, titled Diana and Endymion, at an auction in New York City in 1989.
On March 1918, in an attempt to break through allied lines, the Germans pounded Amiens with shells and bombs for 28 days and nights, destroying much of the city including part of the museum, whose paintings were evacuated to safety.
When they were returned to Amiens after the war, the Langlois was missing. It was first listed as “untraceable since the return of the 1918 removed works”, then “destroyed by the falling of a bomb on the museum”.
The painting Madonna bought is 3cm smaller than the artwork that disappeared in Amiens, leading experts to wonder if it is the original with the signature and date removed or a copy.
Stunning #Madonna pic.twitter.com/gdCd1LJ5GW
- Madonna Nation ❌ (@MadonnaNationX) November 27, 2021
Sources: One | Two