Banksy stolen from Bataclan in Paris in 2019, found on an Italian farm - France 24

Rome (AFP)

But how did she end up there? An artwork attributed to the street-art star Banksy, a tribute to the victims of the November 2015 attacks in Paris and stolen in 2019, was recovered by Italian police from a farm in Abruzzo.

"We recovered the stolen door at Bataclan with a work by Banksy depicting the sad girl," a senior rifle officer in Teramo (center) told AFP.

The operation was initiated at the request of the French police and carried out in the presence of French police, said the official.

A press conference by the prosecutor of L'Aquila, the capital of the Abruzzo region where the work was found, is scheduled for Thursday morning.

This work had been painted on a back door of the Parisian Bataclan performance hall, in the form of a tribute to the very place where 90 people were killed on November 13, 2015, during a series of jihadist attacks that struck Paris .

It had been stolen in January 2019, with the door on which it was painted, cut out with a grinder.

According to the daily La Repubblica, quoting the prosecutor of L'Aquila, the door was found on a farm in the Abruzzo countryside.

The operation took place on a search ordered by the prosecution and this discovery "was made possible thanks to investigations carried out by the prosecutor's office in collaboration with the French police and justice," the newspaper said.

Made with stencil and white paint, the work attributed to Banksy represented a sad-looking female character on one of the emergency exits, located behind the Bataclan, in the passage through which many spectators of the Eagles concert of Death Metal had escaped during the terrorist attack.

This flight had aroused "deep indignation", in the words of the Bataclan team. This "symbol of meditation and belonging to all, residents, Parisians, citizens of the world was taken from us", she deplored then, in a country deeply marked by the Islamist attacks of 2015.

- Napoleon and masked rat -

The British artist, who likes to keep his identity secret but is one of the most highly regarded in his community, had struck a big blow in June 2018 by disseminating a series of stencils, sometimes with a very political tone, in the French capital .

He had claimed authorship of eight works on his Instagram account, including the sad silhouette on the door of the Bataclan, a diversion from the painting "Napoleon crossing the Alps" by Jacques-Louis David, a little girl drawing a pink tapestry motif on a swastika near the former "first reception center" for refugees in Paris. Or a small rat with a masked snout brandishing a pencil (or a cutter), near the Center Pompidou.

This last work, "made on the back of the entrance panel" of a car park, was also stolen in early September 2019. The Center Pompidou, which houses important collections of contemporary art, had filed a complaint "for theft and damage, within a space within its perimeter ".

A man indicted in February by French justice in the context of this case, claims to have acted at the request of the famous street artist.

The concerned work was not found, but other works of Banksy were seized during searches carried out within the framework of this affair, whereas the alleged thief would be close to "the universe of urban art" , according to his lawyer.

The British artist, who likes to play with the media as well as the art market, is today one of the most highly rated contemporary artists in the world.

In cities like Paris, London, New York, these works offer a tremendous spotlight on subjects at the heart of societal debates, such as the question of refugees. If in Paris elected officials were delighted with his artistic "invasion", the problem of their possible theft or damage inevitably arises.

In October 2018, the buyer of a reproduction of one of Banksy's most famous images, "Girl with Balloon", sold for almost 1.185 million euros at Sotheby's in London, was surprised to see the canvas. partially self-destruct thanks to an ingenious mechanism hidden in its frame, partially cutting the image into thin vertical strips.

This master stroke had definitively passed Banksy to posterity, and ensured his planetary celebrity.

© 2020 AFP