French City Appeals To Madonna To Loan Them The Painting It Lost In World War I

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

French City Appeals To Madonna To Loan Them The Painting It Lost In World War I

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images

There is apparently a good chance that Madonna owns a 19th-century French painting that was thought to be lost during World War I. Now, the city where the painting was lost is asking Madonna to give them back that painting, at least temporarily.

According to The Guardian, Jérôme-Martin Langlois painted Diana And Endymion in 1822; Louis XVIII commissioned the painting to hang in Versailles. The French republic took ownership of the painting in 1873, and from 1878 on, it hung in the Musée Des Beaux-Arts, a museum in the small city of Amiens. In 1918, German soldiers bombed and shelled Amiens for 28 straight days, destroying large parts of the museum. Most of the museum’s paintings were evacuated to safety, but Diana And Endymion was thought to be destroyed.

In 1989, Madonna reportedly paid $1.3 million for Diana And Endymion at an auction; this was apparently more than three times the painting’s estimated price. In 2015, someone noticed the painting hanging in Madonna’s house in a photo that was published in Paris Match magazine. The painting that Madonna owns doesn’t have a date or Langlois’ signature, so there’s some possibility that it’s a copy.

In any case, Amiens is currently pushing to become the European Capital Of Culture. In a Facebook video earlier this week, mayor Brigitte Fouré asked Madonna to lend the painting back to the city. Fouré says that Madonna legally bought the painting and that the city isn’t disputing her ownership; she’s just asking for a loaner so that people can discover the painting.

After that Facebook video got a lot of attention, Fouré told The Guardian, “My initial aim was to do something a bit humorous to make people talk about my city, especially at this time, when the pre-selection for European Capital Of Culture is happening. I thought there would be some response to the video, but not the reaction there has been… I’m not asking her to give it to us but to allow us to borrow it for just a few weeks so people here can see it.”

Madonna will swing through France later this year on the Celebration Tour, a show built around her greatest hits. That should give her plenty of time to drop the painting off.

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