A stencilled work by the elusive British street artist Banksy has been stolen from outside the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the modern art museum announced Tuesday. The image, which appeared in June 2018 on the back of a sign for the museum’s car park, features a masked rat — Banksy’s avatar, symbolising the downtrodden — brandishing a utility knife, the instrument he uses to cut out his stencils. The Pompidou Centre said it suspected the thieves of using a saw to cut the sign, which had been fitted with a plexiglass cover to prevent it being pilfered.
