The China Mail - French city Amiens asks Madonna for loan of lost painting

USD -
AED 3.673003
AFN 71.99993
ALL 88.675009
AMD 388.859872
ANG 1.790154
AOA 916.502706
ARS 1130.474595
AUD 1.568605
AWG 1.8025
AZN 1.718945
BAM 1.761768
BBD 2.015296
BDT 121.265623
BGN 1.761206
BHD 0.37692
BIF 2934
BMD 1
BND 1.304975
BOB 6.92193
BRL 5.6707
BSD 0.998144
BTN 84.785507
BWP 13.625861
BYN 3.26649
BYR 19600
BZD 2.004873
CAD 1.397515
CDF 2870.000191
CHF 0.843945
CLF 0.024662
CLP 946.390135
CNY 7.203295
CNH 7.193215
COP 4224.75
CRC 506.909536
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 99.950006
CZK 22.494013
DJF 177.720289
DKK 6.717955
DOP 58.812855
DZD 133.536009
EGP 50.498697
ERN 15
ETB 132.025005
EUR 0.900505
FJD 2.2806
FKP 0.751765
GBP 0.758535
GEL 2.744959
GGP 0.751765
GHS 13.024992
GIP 0.751765
GMD 71.509923
GNF 8643.993749
GTQ 7.676855
GYD 208.831253
HKD 7.79124
HNL 25.850019
HRK 6.7901
HTG 130.551502
HUF 364.570203
IDR 16698.45
ILS 3.566625
IMP 0.751765
INR 84.96615
IQD 1310
IRR 42099.999941
ISK 132.109681
JEP 0.751765
JMD 158.647372
JOD 0.709297
JPY 148.086962
KES 129.502706
KGS 87.449735
KHR 4016.999987
KMF 436.502468
KPW 899.999853
KRW 1411.980478
KWD 0.30738
KYD 0.831723
KZT 510.585013
LAK 21580.135033
LBP 89428.92275
LKR 298.3082
LRD 199.620757
LSL 18.294547
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 5.469605
MAD 9.347499
MDL 17.266835
MGA 4469.999656
MKD 55.460155
MMK 2099.691958
MNT 3573.956258
MOP 8.011224
MRU 39.601292
MUR 45.709669
MVR 15.396993
MWK 1730.807344
MXN 19.624902
MYR 4.29701
MZN 63.899718
NAD 18.295948
NGN 1602.070274
NIO 36.750083
NOK 10.439975
NPR 135.656631
NZD 1.705715
OMR 0.384986
PAB 0.998113
PEN 3.646011
PGK 4.07075
PHP 55.765009
PKR 280.971299
PLN 3.81889
PYG 7974.777615
QAR 3.641932
RON 4.596601
RSD 105.588887
RUB 81.000806
RWF 1428.783764
SAR 3.750529
SBD 8.350849
SCR 14.211762
SDG 600.499648
SEK 9.808605
SGD 1.304515
SHP 0.785843
SLE 22.749737
SLL 20969.490721
SOS 570.419617
SRD 36.1995
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.733172
SYP 13001.862587
SZL 18.292705
THB 33.389654
TJS 10.400007
TMT 3.5
TND 3.037043
TOP 2.342101
TRY 38.796009
TTD 6.775309
TWD 30.408101
TZS 2694.99965
UAH 41.462525
UGX 3652.676002
UYU 41.715647
UZS 12900.000074
VES 92.71499
VND 25971
VUV 121.003465
WST 2.778524
XAF 590.90168
XAG 0.030666
XAU 0.000308
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.724866
XOF 575.501
XPF 107.429344
YER 244.450296
ZAR 18.264601
ZMK 9001.202471
ZMW 26.279733
ZWL 321.999592
  • JRI

    0.0300

    13.01

    +0.23%

  • SCS

    0.3600

    10.82

    +3.33%

  • CMSC

    0.0200

    22.08

    +0.09%

  • NGG

    -3.1600

    67.53

    -4.68%

  • BCE

    -0.1500

    22.56

    -0.66%

  • GSK

    0.7500

    37.37

    +2.01%

  • BTI

    -0.6600

    40.98

    -1.61%

  • BP

    0.4200

    30.19

    +1.39%

  • BCC

    4.4800

    93.1

    +4.81%

  • RIO

    1.4300

    61.41

    +2.33%

  • RBGPF

    2.2700

    65.27

    +3.48%

  • CMSD

    -0.0400

    22.3

    -0.18%

  • RYCEF

    -0.1200

    10.38

    -1.16%

  • AZN

    1.3800

    68.95

    +2%

  • RELX

    -2.0200

    51.83

    -3.9%

  • VOD

    -0.2300

    9.07

    -2.54%

French city Amiens asks Madonna for loan of lost painting
French city Amiens asks Madonna for loan of lost painting / Photo: © AFP/File

French city Amiens asks Madonna for loan of lost painting

The mayor of Amiens in northern France has released a video "requesting" that Madonna "loan" the city a painting from her personal collection, which resembles one lost there during World War I.

Text size:

The 19th-century work, "Diane and Endymion" by artist Jerome-Martin Langlois, is "likely" the same one "loaned by the Louvre to the Fine Art Museum in Amiens before World War I and which subsequently disappeared", Brigitte Foure said in a video message to the Queen of Pop posted on Facebook.

"Obviously, we don't dispute in any way the legal acquisition that you made of this work," Foure added.

Instead she asked the singer for a "loan" to exhibit it in 2028, when Amiens hopes to be the year's European Capital of Culture.

Lending the image would allow "the inhabitants to discover this work and enjoy it," the mayor said.

The painting's possible provenance was suggested by newspaper Le Figaro in an investigation published this month.

Sold at auction for $1.3 million to Madonna in 1989, an art conservator spotted the monumental work in a photo of her home published in magazine Paris Match.

It represents a mythological scene of the bare-breasted goddess Diana approaching the shepherd Endymion.

"I'm not certain that it's the actual painting", but even if a copy, "it's extremely similar to the work" and "I'd like the people of Amiens to be able to see it again," Foure said.

Langlois' original work was ordered in 1817 to decorate the royal Versailles palace outside Paris, said Francois Seguin, interim director of the Picardie Museum -- formerly Amiens' Fine Art Museum.

It was loaned by Paris' Louvre Museum to the northern city from 1872, until being declared missing after World War I.

Madonna's painting "is almost certainly a copy, most likely by the artist himself", the Louvre said when it exhibited the painting in 1988.

Her version lacks the artist's signature, the date of the work and his stamp, and is around 3 centimetres (one inch) smaller than the original, making it "not very likely" that it's the same work, expert Seguin said.

Nevertheless, "it's the only evidence of the work that was lost," he added.

U.Chen--ThChM