A valuable bronze book cover designed by Salvador Dalí has been stolen from a museum in France. The cover of Livre de l’Apocalypse, also known as the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of St John, was taken from the C. Karoutzos Contemporary Art Centre in Issoire in the Auvergne region, central France, overnight on 4 October.
According to the French newspaper Le Figaro, the museum owner Christian Karoutzos discovered the theft late Monday morning after one of the building's large gates had been forced open. The Clermont-Ferrand public prosecutor's office has launched an investigation. “They [the thieves] assassinated France last night, they assassinated French heritage,” Karoutzos told a local radio station, according to The Telegraph.
The 150-kilogramme cover, adorned with gold, precious stones, pearls and seashells, was created by Dalí between 1958 and 1961 following a commission from the art publisher Joseph Forêt. The book was valued at 2m French francs (around €305,000) when it was created, according to The Art Newspaper France.
The book includes the text of St John the Apostle from the New Testament written in AD97 on the Greek island of Patmos; it is illustrated by a number of key artists including Jean Cocteau, Leonor Fini, Georges Mathieu and Bernard Buffet. The volume was acquired in 2003 by Karoutzos, who was contacted for comment.
The heist is the latest in a string of museum thefts across Europe. Last month, two paintings by the French Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir were stolen from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, near Nice. In August, four works by the Renaissance master Antonello da Messina were stolen from the Museo Regionale di Messina in the artist’s hometown in Sicily.