On Saturday, French museum Centre Pompidou-Metz sent out a curious media blast headed by two grainy images. The first depicted a ripe banana duct-taped to a blank white wall—unmistakably, Maurizio Cattelan’s viral artwork Comedian—and the second featuring just the duct-tape on the wall. The news: Cattelan’s banana had been stolen from the eastern French museum.

In reality, little was lost in the scuffle over the conceptual work. Per the museum, Staff replaced the fruit “as quickly as possible” with a fresh banana and a strip of tape, as they usually do about every three days. The value of the controversial piece, a limited edition of which famously sold at auction for $6.24 million in 2024, lies entirely in its certificate of authenticity and in “the protocol governing its presentation rather than its perishable element,” explained the museum. As such, it said “no irreversible damage was observed” to the stolen, possibly eaten banana.