A French city believes Madonna may be the owner of a lost World War I artwork

The mayor of a French city believes Madonna may be the owner of a painting lost during the First World War.

Brigitte Fouré, the mayor of Amiens in the north of France, insisted that there is a “special bond” between her city and the Queen of the Pops in the form of a “lost” picture that Madonna may currently own, according to The Guardian.

Fouré hopes the painting, titled “Diana and Endymion” – believed to be the work of Jérôme-Martin Langlois – will contribute to Amiens’ successful bid for European capital of culture in 2028.

“Madonna, you probably haven’t heard of Amiens… but you have a special bond with our city,” Fouré said in a video message.

“This painting is probably a work that the Louvre lent to the Amiens museum before the First World War, and after that we lost track of it,” he continued, asking the singer to lend the painting as supported her candidacy.

“That is my prayer, the wish I present to you.”

The painting, commissioned by Louis XVIII and completed in 1822, had been on display at the Museum of Fine Arts – now the Picardy Museum – in Amiens since 1878, but was thought to have been destroyed when the city was bombed in 1918.

According to an article in the French newspaper Le Figaro, the painting or an identical print reappeared at auction in New York in 1989, where Madonna paid $1.3 million (£1 million) for it, more than triple the estimated price.

Apparently, the curator of Amiens did not notice her until 2015, in the background of a photo of Madonna in her home published by the magazine Paris Match.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, reports surfaced that Madonna would be embarking on a 40th anniversary tour in 2023.