A museum in eastern France on Sunday reported to police the theft of a banana that forms a core part of a multimillion-dollar artwork by Italian visual artist Maurizio Cattelan.
The missing fruit – which was taped to a wall to form the provocative work by Cattelan called "Comedian" – was noticed by a guard on Saturday to have gone missing.
The Pompidou-Metz museum, which is a branch of the famous Pompidou Centre in Paris, said in a statement it had lodged a criminal complaint for theft against persons unknown.
It also said it had replaced the banana.
It is not the first time damage has been dealt to the conceptual artwork, whose perishable banana centerpiece is replaced every three days to keep it contemporary.
