A banana worth 5.8 million euros has been stolen from a museum in France for the second time
Unknown perpetrators have stolen the world-famous work by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, *The Comic*, from the Centre Pompidou-Metz in France for the second time. The piece is an installation featuring an ordinary banana attached to the wall with a piece of tape.
The disappearance of the exhibit, whose market value is estimated at a staggering 5.8 million euros, was noticed by a security guard during a routine patrol. The museum’s administration has already filed an official criminal complaint with the police, as the perpetrator could not be identified at the scene and the administration has no means of communication with them.
The museum itself reassured art lovers, noting that the stolen banana had already been promptly replaced with a new one. This is standard procedure for displaying “The Comic,” as the fruit is replaced every three days in any case to maintain its freshness. However, a report was filed with law enforcement out of respect for the artwork and due to the recurrence of such incidents. Last year, in July 2025, one of the visitors simply ate the banana, but at that time, the museum’s management did not involve the police, and the artist Maurizio Cattelan himself merely joked that he was disappointed the guest hadn’t eaten the adhesive tape along with the fruit.
The conceptual art piece “Comic” was first presented at the prestigious Art Basel exhibition in Miami Beach in 2019, and since then it has regularly been the target of attacks and heated discussions about the boundaries of contemporary art. In that same year, 2019, artist David Datuna ate the exhibit, explaining it as a simple case of hunger, and in 2023, a similar incident occurred at an exhibition in Seoul. Despite the constant scandals, the installation’s financial value has only grown: in November 2024, Justin Sun, founder of a well-known cryptocurrency project, purchased one of the original versions for 5.8 million euros and, a few days later, also publicly ate the fruit in front of journalists in Hong Kong.
The unique feature of Cattelan’s work is that the physical object has no value whatsoever. Buyers and museums pay exclusively for an official certificate of authenticity and detailed instructions from the artist on proper display. According to the artist’s strict requirements, the fresh banana must be mounted on the wall at a precise angle of 37 degrees and at a height of exactly 1.72 meters from the floor, and the owners have the right to replace the fruit itself at their discretion. French law enforcement is currently trying to identify the thief, but there are no leads or information on the current whereabouts of the missing banana.
This was reported by the international television channel Euronews.
At a Sotheby’s auction, Maurizio Cattelan’s work titled “Comic”—a banana taped to a white wall—sold for $6.2 million. A Chinese crypto entrepreneur bought this banana and ate it.
