Painting stolen

PARIS: A painting by famed French contemporary  artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and worth an estimated $11.3 million has  been stolen from its owner’s Parisian home, police said on Saturday. The  painting was removed without any trace of a break-in from a plush  apartment near the Elysee presidential palace and the interior ministry.  The owner returned home on Friday after three days away to discover the  painting, details of which were not made public, was missing, police  said. With no sign of a break-in police suspect a family quarrel as the  motive for the theft. Basquiat, a New Yorker of Haitian and Porto Rican  origin close to avant garde legend Andy Warhol, died from an overdose in  1988 aged just 27. He started  out as a graffiti artist in Lower Manhattan but a meeting with Warhol  helped transform his fortunes. His 1982 work ‘Dustheads’ fetched $48.8  million two years ago at Christie’s.