A 150-kilogram (331-pound) bronze cover designed by Salvador Dalí has been stolen from a private art center in Issoire, central France. The cover was part of The Apocalypse of Saint John, a unique artist’s book weighing about 210 kilograms (463 pounds) in total.
The theft occurred overnight between Oct. 4 and 5 at the C. Karoutzos Contemporary Art Center in the Puy-de-Dôme department. The Clermont-Ferrand prosecutor’s office launched an investigation and described the missing work as an exceptional and unique piece. French media have reported that the complete work could be worth several million euros.
The manuscript’s original parchment pages were secured in a vault and were not taken. The thieves instead removed the bespoke bronze casing created by Dalí for the volume.
How Dalí’s cover became part of a monumental book
French publisher Joseph Forêt conceived The Apocalypse of Saint John in 1958 as an extraordinary artistic interpretation of the biblical Book of Revelation. The project brought together seven artists and seven writers, including Salvador Dalí, Bernard Buffet, Léonard Foujita, Leonor Fini, Georges Mathieu, Pierre-Yves Trémois and Ossip Zadkine. Writers included Jean Cocteau, Jean Giono, Emil Cioran, Ernst Jünger and Jean Rostand.
Calligrapher Micheline Nicolas wrote the biblical text by hand on about 150 parchment sheets, totaling roughly 93,000 to 95,000 letters. Laid end to end, the parchment extends for about 150 meters (492 feet).
Dalí created the bronze cover between 1958 and 1961 using the lost-wax casting process. The casing was designed as an integral part of the book rather than simply as a protective cover. It incorporates gold, precious stones, shells, nails and gold cutlery.
The completed book was presented at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris in 1961 and later exhibited internationally. It was acquired by art collector Christian Karoutzos in 2003 after spending time in Switzerland and Japan.
According to Le Parisien, the work was being displayed in Issoire through the end of October.
How was the 150-kilogram cover taken?
Staff discovered the theft on Oct. 5 following an overnight break-in. The owner said the thieves disabled the surveillance system and took the recording equipment. Only the base of the cover was left near a staircase.
The building’s main gate was also reportedly damaged during the break-in. The Clermont-Ferrand gendarmerie’s research unit is investigating the case, but authorities have not publicly identified suspects or explained how the thieves removed the 150-kilogram bronze cover from the building.
The materials used in the work have raised concerns that the cover could be melted down. The owner has said he fears the bronze and other valuable materials could be destroyed for their material value, eliminating the artistic work as a whole.
The cover’s size, distinctive design and association with Dalí could also make it difficult to pass off as an ordinary piece of bronze. However, investigators have not publicly said what they believe the thieves intend to do with it or whether they suspect an attempt to sell the work intact.
The theft follows other European cultural-property robberies
The disappearance in Issoire comes after several high-profile cultural-property thefts in Europe. In October 2025, thieves stole French Crown jewels from the Louvre in Paris, including pieces containing Colombian emeralds.
In late August 2026, thieves took most of Spain’s Villena Treasure during a four-minute raid on the Villena Museum in Alicante. The Bronze Age collection contains gold objects that are important for their archaeological and historical information as well as their material value.
On Sept. 8, thieves stole two Renoir paintings from the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. Police recovered two other paintings taken during the same break-in, while the two Renoir works remained missing.
The Dalí theft differs in both scale and construction. The missing object is a major component of a single, documented work whose artistic identity is closely tied to its physical form.
The investigation now centers on establishing how the break-in was carried out and where the bronze cover went after it was removed. The loss of the surveillance recordings could limit the evidence available from inside the building, while the cover’s distinctive appearance could help investigators identify it if it resurfaces.
For now, the Dalí cover remains missing. The parchment pages and the rest of The Apocalypse of Saint John remain secured in France.