US first lady Melania Trump’s bronze statue is missing from her hometown in Slovenia. The statue was reportedly sawed off and carried away. The police in Slovenia are investigating the case of the missing statue.
According to Slovenian police, they were notified on Tuesday of a theft in the village of Rozno, where the statue was installed, CNN reported.
In a statement released on Friday, police spokesperson Alenka Drenik Rangus said that officers “conducted an inspection of the crime scene and collected information.” She added that police were working to track down the culprits. The theft was reported to the district state prosecutor and the investigating judge.
No further details were given by the authorities.
Melania Trump’s statue’s feet and ankles remain linked to the tree stump it stood on as most of it has been sawed off, revealed photographs that were published in Slovenian local media.
The statue was located next to a river close to Sevnica, a small hamlet located nearly 90 kms (56 miles) east of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.
The original wooden version of this bronze statue was set on fire by vandals in July 2020 before it was stolen. After being severely burned, it was taken down from its plinth and shown at an art gallery in Koper, Slovenia, later that year. In 2023, it was displayed at an exhibition in Croatia.
After the wooden statue was severely damaged, US artist Brad Downey told CNN that he had always planned to create a bronze replica of the statue to display in an institutional setting.
The wooden statue was initially commissioned by Downey from Ales Zupevc, a local conceptual artist popularly known as Maxi. The latter was born in the same year and in the same hospital as Melania.
Locals had differing opinions on its somewhat abstract depiction of the US first lady wearing the sky-blue dress she wore to her husband Donald Trump’s first inauguration as president in 2017.
The sleepy town of Sevnica with a population of 5,000, has established itself as a popular tourist destination thanks to its famous daughter. The town now sells a variety of Melania-themed products, including cake, chocolate, and honey.