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This is big news here: Unfortunately 5 major artworks were stolen from a Paris museum. I am outraged. I feel like they have been stolen from me personally. How can this happen in a time when all kinds of security measures are taken everywhere ? And what do the thieves do with the work ? I hope it gets recovered eventually.
Has any of your works ever been stolen ? What did you do to prevent it, and where did it happen ? Someone stole a dress from me once, the model just kept the dress and left with it, and in the hectic surrounding the fast-speed off and on activity behind the runway, I only noticed when it was too late. Naturally, the theft was denied... what could I do ?
Julie.
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Five paintings by Picasso, Matisse and other great artists have been stolen from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, French officials say.
The paintings are estimated to be worth just under 100m euros (£86m; $123m).
They were taken overnight on Wednesday and reported missing early on Thursday, officials say.
The museum, across the River Seine from the Eiffel Tower, has been cordoned off by investigators.
Security camera footage reportedly shows someone entering the museum through a window during the night.
"This is a serious crime to the heritage of humanity," Christophe Girard, deputy culture secretary at the Paris Town Hall, told a news conference.
The theft was committed by "one or more individuals who were obviously organised", Mr Girard said.
He added that investigators were looking into how the museum's security system and several guards were outsmarted by the thief or thieves.
Mr Girard put the value of the stolen paintings at just under 100m euros (£86m; $123m). They had earlier been estimated to be worth some 500m euros (£431m; $618m).
The five missing paintings are Dove with Green Peas by Pablo Picasso (painted in 1911), Pastoral by Henri Matisse (1906), Olive Tree near l'Estaque by Georges Braque (1906), Woman with Fan by Amedeo Modigliani (1919) and Still Life with Candlestick by Fernand Leger (1922).
Broken padlockMuseum officials discovered the theft early on Thursday, when they found a smashed window and a broken padlock which had been cut to gain access to the five paintings.
It is still unclear why the alarm systems did not alert staff earlier, reports the BBC's David Chazan in Paris.
There has not been anything comparable since the 1990 theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston of a Vermeer, several Rembrandts, Degas and other masterpieces, says BBC Arts Correspondent David Sillito.
None of these works has yet been recovered.
Though there is often speculation that works have been "stolen to order" for dishonest collectors, experts in the field say that in reality this is virtually unheard of.
Investigators think that international criminal gangs use art works effectively as a form of currency; if you're dealing in drugs and weapons, a rolled up painting is a very good way of carrying very large amounts of "currency" around, even if it is one tenth of the value that it would be if it was at auction, our arts correspondent adds.
The Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, located in the east wing of the Palais de Tokyo building, is separate from the bigger and better-known national collection of modern art at the Pompidou Centre.
Source: BBC News
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