They grab a graffiti of Banksy at the doors of the Pompidou Center in Paris

A graffiti of the famous street artist Banksy painted in 2018 next to the Parisian Pompidou Center It was stolen last weekend, the museum reported today.

The work was on the back of the sign indicating the entrance to the Pompidou parking lot, in the heart of the French capital, and had been protected after its appearance, on June 25, 2018, with a plastic plate.

Banksy, who claimed the work the next day through his Instagram account, represented his famous rat with a handkerchief covering his face and with a pen or a bomb in his hands.

The Pompidou regretted through a statement the theft, and said it happened on Saturday night, and expressed confidence that the video surveillance images of the museum can contribute to "identify the authors" and clarify the circumstances of that fact. The museum filed a complaint for "theft and destruction" on its perimeter.

The work was conceived by Banksy as a tribute to the student demonstrations of May 1968, of which half a century was last year, the Museum reported.

In his claim text, the Bristol artist said: "Fifty years after the 1968 uprisings in Paris. The cradle of stencil art."

The Pompidou, dedicated to contemporary art, recalled that graffiti is among its centers of interest, as evidenced by the work commissioned by the artists Lek & Sowat, from that discipline, in the framework of the remodeling of the center.

Paris contains a dozen street works by the famous British artist born in 1974.

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