Lost 19th-Century Painting Believed Destroyed in WWI Found in Madonna's Home

A neoclassical painting by Jérôme-Martin Langlois, long thought destroyed during World War I, has been identified in a photograph of Madonna's home. The work, 'Diana and Endymion' (1822), was commissioned by King Louis XVIII for the Palace of Versailles, later acquired by the French state in 1873 and housed at the Louvre before being lent to the Musée de Picardie in Amiens. It was believed lost when German bombardments devastated Amiens in March 1918, but museum paintings had been evacuated. Madonna purchased the unsigned, undated work at a Sotheby's New York auction in 1989 for $1.3 million, listed as 'unknown artist.' In 2015, an Amiens curator recognized it in a Paris Match photo. In January 2023, Amiens mayor Brigitte Fouré publicly appealed via Facebook for Madonna to lend the painting to the city to support its bid for European Capital of Culture 2028.