Priceless de Chirico stolen from Béziers (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, November 21 - A priceless painting by Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico has been stolen from the Béziers Museum of Art, sources said on Tuesday. The Composition with Self-Portrait (1926) was taken from the Musée des Beaux Arts in the southern French city last Thursday, judicial sources said. The work had been part of the collection of Resistance hero Jean Moulin, who was born in Béziers.
    Local media said the canvas had been cut out of its frame.
    Greek-born de Chirico (1888-1978) founded the 'Scuola Metafisica' art movement before WWI, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. After 1919, he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.