A long-lost painting worth over GBP 427,000 by famous German artist Sigmar Polke has finally been recovered from an apartment after it was stolen 10 years ago.

The police seized the Polke painting from an apartment in the city of Mainz in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz after it disappeared from a gallery over 10 years ago following the artist’s death.

Sigmar Polke was a German artist whose inventive paintings and photographs used non-traditional materials, like meteorite dust or detergent.

He is widely considered to be one of the most influential artists of the post-war era with one of his paintings, Dschungel (Jungle), selling for USD 27.1 million at Sotheby’s in 2015.

Polke, who is beloved in Europe for his paintings, photographs, and sculptures, was also the subject of a retrospective that showcased at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Modern in London in 2014.

However, shortly after Polke died in 2010, several of his artworks, including a painting called ‘Vasen Linsenbild’, were stolen from a gallery in the city of Cologne – a theft which left the police puzzled for years.

The painting, estimated at a value of over EUR 500,000 (GBP 427,000), has now reappeared after the police detected a sale offer for Polke’s missing art piece in November 2020.

The criminal police initiated an investigation which led them to identifying a group of two men, aged 43 and 48, and a woman, aged 39, as the main suspects.

Polke’s ‘Vasen Linsenbild’ was recovered by the police after the District Court in Mainz issued a search warrant of the suspects’ private premises on 26th May.

Detailed examination revealed that the painting was indeed Polke’s original.

The 111-centimetre (44 in) high and 92-centimetre (36 in) wide painting was seized by the police and will remain in their possession until the end of the investigation.

No further details have been reported about the other stolen paintings from Polke’s collection in 2010.