ART

“L’Estaque, l’embarcadere” (“The Wharf at L’Estaque”), a Georges Braque painting worth an estimated $3 million, has been stolen from the National Museum of Modern Art at the Pompidou Center in Paris. It was not known exactly how the thief got the work out of the museum. The 14x19-inch painting was the first fauvist painting acquired by the National Museum of Modern Art in 1946. Painted in 1906, it shows a scene at the small Mediterranean port of L’Estaque near Marseille. Braque (1882-1963) was considered a leader of the fauvist movement distinguished by bright colors and distorted forms.