Thieves Pulled Off Another Shocking Art Heist in France. This Time, They Took a 330-Pound Bronze Book Cover Designed by Salvador Dalí

On Sunday night or Monday morning, thieves stole an enormous bronze book cover designed by Salvador Dalí from a small contemporary art collection in the town of Issoire in central France. The cover belongs to a massive book titled Livre de l’Apocalypse. The work was the collective achievement of seven artists and seven writers who, between 1958 and 1961, were recruited by French publisher Joseph Forêt to interpret and illustrate parts of the Book of Revelation, the canonical last book of the New Testament.

These leading creatives—including Ossip Zadkine, Léonard Foujita, Jean Cocteau and Jean Giono—contributed 150 scroll-sized pages of text and biblical scenes that took more than 2,000 hours to complete, according to the Telegraph’s Henry Samuel. Dalí’s cover leaves a fittingly grand first impression. He created it using a now-lost wax casting technique.

Featuring a prominent crucifix, it is made from a constellation of materials, including bronze, gemstones, pearls, forks and seashells. Considered the most expensive book in the world at the time of its creation, the work is likewise famed for its enormous heft. It weighs roughly 463 pounds, with the cover alone tipping the scales at 330 pounds.

French heritage was murdered.” The book’s cover and several parchments were on display at Karoutzos’ small private contemporary art center when an unknown number of thieves forced their way through an exterior gate and demolished the book’s plexiglass display case. They smashed everything,” Karoutzos tells La Montagne’s David Allignon. Though all of the book’s parchments were left untouched, authorities remain baffled as to how the theft of such a heavy artwork was carried out so seamlessly.

Valued at 2 million francs at the time of its creation—about $408,000 in 1961 dollars and $4.5 million in today’s money—the book is considered priceless by many for its history and cultural significance. Issoire Mayor Bertrand Barraud described it as “the work of a lifetime” and called its loss “incalculable,” according to Euronews’ Christina Molle. I’ll leave that question open.” For more than a decade after its completion in 1961, the book toured nearly 150 exhibitions around the world, including a stop at the French pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, New York.

John the Divine,” the New York Times’ Walter Carlson reported at the time. Admission will be charged to see it.” Karoutzos bought the massive book in 2003 for “several million euros,” as he tells Le Figaro’s Alix Vermande. The tome’s previous owners had intended to divide it up and sell the separate pieces.