Madonna was asked by the French city of Amiens to lend them a painting they lost in 1918. She bought it in 1989.
Madonna has announced that she will embark on a worldwide tour later in the year. She will make a stop at Paris, where the mayor of Amiens hopes the Queen of Pop will help improve the city’s chances of being the European Capital of Culture.
Endymion and Diana by Jerome Martin Langlois shows Endymion looking passionately at Diana, a Roman goddess. There is what appears to have been Cupid between them.
It was displayed in Amiens’ museum once, but it was destroyed by a German bombing campaign in 1918.
According to Le Figaro in France, the painting or a very similar one was sold in New York in 1989. Madonna paid $1.3m (PS1.05m).
Amiens, France’s birthplace, will be the 2028 European Capital of Culture.
Brigitte Foure posted a Facebook video in which Amiens’ mayor said that while she did not dispute the legal acquisition, “we are eligible to be European Capital of Culture 2028.”
“So, I would like it that this year, on this occasion, you could lend me your painting.”
Ms Foure believes the painting was loaned to her city by the Louvre in Paris prior to the First World War. However, the gallery lost its track.
King Louis XVIII commissioned Diana and Endymion and they were purchased by the state in 1873.
Sky News reached out to Madonna’s representatives in order to get a reply.
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