The French mayor is asking Madonna to lend the city a work of art believed to be a masterpiece lost in World War I
- Madonna was asked by a city in France to lend them artworks
- It is considered the masterpiece Diana and Endymion by Jerome-Martin Langlois
- She bought it at a Sotheby’s auction in New York in 1989 for £1 million
- The painting was acquired by the French Republic in 1873
Madonna was asked by a city in France to loan them a work of art believed to be a masterpiece lost in the war.
The 64-year-old superstar bought what is now pictured as Diana and Endymion by Jerome-Martin Langlois for $1.3million (£1million) at a Sotheby’s sale in New York in 1989.
The painting was acquired by the French Republic in 1873 and exhibited in Amiens, but was lost when the city was bombed in 1918 during the First World War.
After a recent article suggested that the painting, or a nearly identical one, had resurfaced in 1989, Mayor Brigitte Foure made her request to Madonna in the hopes that she would deliver it to them before the city’s bid to be European Capital of Culture in 2028 become, will borrow.
Madonna was asked by a city in France to loan them an artwork pictured above, believed to be a masterpiece lost in the war
The superstar pictured above bought what is now thought to be Jerome-Martin Langlois’ Diana and Endymion for $1.3 million (£1million) at a Sotheby’s auction in New York in 1989
She told the pop star in a video: “Madonna, you’ve probably never heard of Amiens, but there’s a special connection between you and our city.”
“This painting is probably a work loaned to the Museum of Amiens by the Louvre before the First World War, after which we lost track of it.”
She added: “Of course we in no way deny that you have legally acquired this work.”
Ms Fouré made the application after an article in French newspaper Le Figaro suggested the painting in Madonna’s possession could be the lost masterpiece.
In 2015, a curator from Amiens — the birthplace of President Emmanuel Macron — noticed the painting in the background of a magazine photograph of Madonna taken at her home.
She paid more than three times the asking price for the painting when it was put up for sale in the 1980s, but no one connected it to the missing Langlois at the time.