Before the Center Pompidou: Banksy artwork stolen in Paris

A work by British graffiti artist Banksy has been stolen in front of the Parisian Art Museum Center Pompidou. The thieves apparently used a saw to cut out the spray pattern on the back of a parking sign, the Center Pompidou said on Tuesday.

"We are not the owners of the work," said a museum spokesman. The stencil engraver had located on the back of the entrance sign to the parking garage, communicated the arts and cultural institution. They reported charges for theft and damage.

The image is a rat sprayed with a stencil. She wears a cloth around her muzzle and has a cutter knife in her paw - the tool with which Banksy cuts his stencils. The graffiti appeared about a year ago, said the Center Pompidou. To protect a plexiglass disc was attached. There had already been a theft or damage attempt in July 2018, which could be prevented by security personnel.

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, Fifty years since the 1968 uprising in Paris. The birthplace of modern stencil art.

A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on Jun 26, 2018 at 7:00 PDT

Banksy is the most prominent graffiti artist in the world, but his identity is known only to a handful of confidants. Most recently, a work attributed to Banksy was stolen on a door of the Paris concert hall Bataclan in January.

The music club killed 90 people in November 2015 in an Islamist terrorist attack. At that time, the club management said Banksy had left the artwork there as a symbol of the memory of the terrible event. The stencil showed a sad-looking, down-looking young woman with a black and white veil.