#Banksy’s stolen Bataclan memorial painting found in a remote Italian barn

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Banksy’s original Paris Bataclan piece, memorializing the 90 people who were killed at the concert hall in a terrorist attack on Nov. 13, 2015.
AFP via Getty Images

A painting by mysterious street artist Banksy has an even more cryptic twist.

The piece — a memorial for the terrorist attack on the Bataclan theater in Paris — was stolen in 2019. This week, authorities finally recovered it in a remote corner of an Italian barn’s attic. But they still haven’t made an arrest in the heist case, and the investigation is ongoing.

The piece was originally spray-painted onto an emergency exit door at the theater to memorialize the November 2015 Islamic extremist attack, which took place during an Eagles of Death Metal concert. The stenciled work commemorated the deaths of 90 concert-goers. But, in January 2019, the painting was stolen by a team of hooded thieves.

This week, detectives finally tracked down the piece — in the upper reaches of a barn in the Abruzzo region of Italy.

At a press conference, in L’Aquila, Italy, prosecutor Michele Renzo said that tracking down the painted door — depicting a mournful young woman, accented by drips of paint — came about through a joint effort between French and Italian investigators, according to the Associated Press.

Their investigation revealed that the robbers used angle cutters to detach the door from its frame. Then they loaded their precious haul into a truck and sped away.

Renzo believes that the theft was about turning a profit rather than making a political statement. No arrests have been made thus far — Chinese nationals living on the property say they never even knew it was there to begin with — and the investigation is said to be ongoing.

At Wednesday’s press conference, French embassy liaison officer Major Christophe Cengig noted that the owners of Bataclan are “thrilled” to be getting back their heart-rending artwork. “It belongs to the Bataclan,” he said. “It belongs to all of France in a sense.”