“Topless” and “Virgin Mary” are phrases you never usually expect to hear in the same sentence, mostly because virgin marys have no alcohol in them and are morning drinks and who goes topless at brunch?
Normally you’d be right, but Prague sculptor Pavel Purkrábek sneaked one past you and made a topless statue of the Virgin Mary … and then some thieves sneaked one past an entire town and stole the statue. The controversial bronze work of art watched over the town of Bohdanec from a hilltop since 2007 until it was stolen on Monday evening. Brian Kenety of CzechPosition.com reports that there is concerned it might have been sold on the black market for scrap metal. Thanks to “soaring global prices,” Kenety reports, “emboldening thieves to go after everything from copper wire cables to objects d’art — and even an entire four-metric-ton iron railway bridge near the city of Cheb, bordering Germany.”
Not everyone in town will be sorry to see the statue gone, as a number of people found the half-naked Virgin inappropriate and there had been a civic initiative to remove it. The owners, forestry company Less & Forest, however, are offering a reward of a half-million crown (a little under $30,000 U.S.) for its safe return.
Normally you’d be right, but Prague sculptor Pavel Purkrábek sneaked one past you and made a topless statue of the Virgin Mary … and then some thieves sneaked one past an entire town and stole the statue. The controversial bronze work of art watched over the town of Bohdanec from a hilltop since 2007 until it was stolen on Monday evening. Brian Kenety of CzechPosition.com reports that there is concerned it might have been sold on the black market for scrap metal. Thanks to “soaring global prices,” Kenety reports, “emboldening thieves to go after everything from copper wire cables to objects d’art — and even an entire four-metric-ton iron railway bridge near the city of Cheb, bordering Germany.”
Not everyone in town will be sorry to see the statue gone, as a number of people found the half-naked Virgin inappropriate and there had been a civic initiative to remove it. The owners, forestry company Less & Forest, however, are offering a reward of a half-million crown (a little under $30,000 U.S.) for its safe return.
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