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Dali sculpture snatched from Paris museum

Sophie Inge
Sophie Inge - [email protected]
Dali sculpture snatched from Paris museum
The stolen bronze sculpture was a depiction of Dali's famous melting clocks, as seen here in The Persistence of Memory. Photo: Wikicommons

In the latest stolen art caper in France, a thief made off with a sculpture by surrealist art master Salvador Dali. The only good news here is that stolen works in France do sometimes get back to their rightful owners.

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Police are searching for two thieves who burst into two exhibition rooms on Saturday showing works from the renowned Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali in Montmartre in Paris’s18th arrondissement.

One of the men reportedly tried to steal a sculpture entitled ‘Danse du Temps I’ at the Espace Dali on rue Poulbot. However his attempt was thwarted by a vigilant tourist and he fled empty handed.

Meanwhile, at a nearby gallery just 100 metres away on place du Tertre, a second man managed to make off with a bronze sculpture depicting Dali’s famous so-called melting clocks, a recurrent symbol in the surrealist’s work, French daily Le Parisien reported

Estimated at €22,000, the stolen work was kept behind a display case but was not equipped with an alarm. Both men managed to escape.

Sadly this isn't the first piece of art to go missing from a French museum or private collection. However, police recently recovered a Rembrandt worth millions that was stolen from a museum in the south of France. 

Also a trickle of the trove of artworks pilfered by the Nazis during World War II have found their way back to their rightful owners. France recently turned over three works that were seized and auctioned off in the 1930s. 

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