Anyone seen our missing 38-ton sculpture?

The disappearance of a 38-ton metal sculpture, last exhibited in Spain's greatest modern art museum, has mystified police.

The work by the American artist Richard Serra was commissioned in 1986 by Madrid's Reina Sofia museum, where it was displayed for five years before being removed and placed in storage.

This year the museum admitted losing track of the work, Equal-Parallel/Guernica-Bengasi, for which the culture ministry paid about £150,000.

A police investigation concluded that theft was implausible. The piece, which had taken five cranes to move, was thought to be too awkward to handle, and it was worth almost nothing.

It was thought the artwork had not been moved but was incorporated into the foundations or grounds of the ministry.

Last week police excavated an area of garden where metal detectors had discovered the presence of a large object. But it turned out to be part of a collapsed high-tension electrical tower.

There's a photo of the sculpture here.