The plaster sculpture by Rodin, purchased from the artist by the Glasgow Museum in 1901, was on display at Kelvingrove Park between June 25 and September 30, 1949, according to Glasgow Life, which is responsible for many of the Scottish city's cultural venues. Since then, all trace of him seems to have been lost.
According to the Comité Rodin, which compiles a critical catalogue of the artist's works around the world, the two-metre-tall sculpture represents Jean d'Aire, one of the figures in the Burghers of Calais group, its director Jérôme Le Blay told AFP.
The disappearance is "regrettable, but it has to be put into perspective with the times," as plaster works did not arouse much interest in the 1940s, he said. According to him, the value of this work is now around "three million pounds" (3.5 million euros).
The first bronze statue of the six Burghers of Calais, which celebrates the sacrifice of these notables during the siege of the northern France city by the English armies during the Hundred Years War, was commissioned by the municipality and inaugurated in 1895. There are many bronze and plaster versions around the world. According to Glasgow Life, the missing statue had "sustained damage" at the time of the 1949 open-air exhibition.
For the Rodin Committee, it may therefore have suffered the same fate as another statue by the artist representing John the Baptist, exhibited at the same time in Kelvingrove, which was broken and whose remains are stored at the Glasgow Museums' Resource Centre.
For Jérôme Le Blay, the remains of this "unlocated" piece may simply be found later in the archives. According to The Times, another 1,750 objects have disappeared from Scottish museums, including gold coins linked to Queen Mary I of Scotland who reigned in the <>th century.
The discovery comes weeks after the British Museum admitted to the theft of thousands of pieces from its reserves, prompting the resignation of its director. According to the BBC, Museum Wales, which runs seven national museums in Wales, has also found that around 2,000 objects are missing from its collections, although the institution says many of them may simply have been "misplaced or misclassified" and "will be found" as the inventory progresses.