In her homeland Slovenia: unknown steal statue of Melania Trump

In Slovenia, an unusual theft causes a sensation: a life-size bronze statue of the First Lady Melania Trump (55) has disappeared without a trace. Like the police in the capital Ljubljana on Thursday, the sculpture, near Melania’s home town of Sevnica, was registered on May 13th as stolen.

According to the police, the officers started investigations immediately after the theft report. “The statue was sawn off on the ankle and completely removed,” it continues. The perpetrators must have taken with heavy equipment, since the 1.80 meter tall bronze sculpture with concrete and metal bars was anchored.

The American concept artist Brad Downey, who created the statue together with his Slovenian colleague Rok Pahor, learned about theft while working on a new project in Germany. He was “a little sad that she is gone,” Downey commented on the disappearance. “My feeling is that it could have something to do with Donald Trump’s new presidency, but who knows?”

Particularly piquant: the stolen bronze figure was already a replacement. The original wooden sculpture was burned down by unknown people in 2020. Downey then decided to make a fire -proof bronze code.

It “did not really feel” that the original statue went up in flames, the artist said. He described his work as a “anti-monument” anti-propaganda “to Trump’s policy by reminding that his wife himself was an immigrant. The bronze statue stood on an elevated tree stump and showed Melania Trump in a waving pose.

The wife of US President Donald Trump was born in 1970 as Melanija Knavs in Novo Mesto in Slovenia and grew up with her Slovenian parents in the 5,000-inhabitant city of Sevnica, 65 kilometers east of the capital Ljubljana. Her home is said to have visited the former model, which had emigrated to New York in the 1990s, but has not visited for decades.