By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

In one of the bolder thefts in recent memory in Montreal, someone walked away with a life-sized sculpture in Westmount.

The bronze statue, Mother and Child, weighs just over 330 pounds, and is worth about half a million dollars, according to the artist, Lea Vivot. It has been on loan to the City of Westmount since 2022. Countless Montrealers and tourists alike have posed for pictures with the sculpture – a mother nuzzling her infant child on a bench. The piece d’art sat on Sherbrooke at Prince Albert, in the small Prince Albert Square.

Before that it was just outside a store on Sherbrooke St. downtown between Bishop and Mackay.

Police say the statue was stolen on the night of Friday, November 27. Oddly enough, this was not the first time thieves had tried to make off with it. About 25 years ago police were called by witnesses who watched as would-be thieves tried to make off with the statue, struggling to get it into a waiting vehicle.

Nor is this the first time one of Vivot’s pieces was targeted by thieves. Montrealers remember The Secret Bench of Knowledge, another life-sized bronze sculpture, this one of a young boy and girl sitting on a bench sharing a romantic moment, the boy holding a red apple. There are a few different castings of that one, one of which is in Montreal. And a piece of hers that is in New York was in the process of being stolen when police arrived.

This is actually the third theft of a public art piece this month. A few weeks ago thieves made off with a statue of racecar legend Gilles Villeneuve in Berthierville. And a few days later a monument was vandalized in a park in Lachine. That one, at 1950 Provost St., honours the founder of the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Saint Anne in Lachine, depicting Sister Marie-Anne and two children. The statue of the boy had had its arms sawed off and stolen, and there is damage to one of the legs.

Police are asking the public’s help in tracking down Mother and Child. The family who owns it, as well as Westmount Mayor Christina Smith, and of course Vivot, all just want the statue back where it belongs. n