Daylight robbery: Delacroix painting stolen from Paris museum

A fragment of 'The Arabs of Oranby' by Eugene Delacroix

"The Arabs of Oranby", a masterpiece worth over $780,000 created by the leader of the French Romantic school Eugene Delacroix, has been reportedly stolen from an art gallery in central Paris.

The 19x11cm tour de force by the creator of "The Massacre at Chios" was painted in 1837.

Le Parisien reported that the work was stolen in broad daylight on Friday afternoon, between 2 and 2:30pm, in what has been described as a "robbery of incredible audacity."

The watercolor was reportedly stolen from the prestigious Schmit art gallery located in the 1st arrondissement on the chic rue Saint-Honore, parallel to the Louvre museum.

A gallery worker discovered the theft shortly after a man who looked about 50 years old was allegedly seen leaving the gallery exposing works by the leading French masters of the 19th and 20th centuries.