The 150kg bronze cover of a book dubbed one of the world’s most expensive and heaviest has been stolen from an art centre in central France.

Axar.az reports, citing The Connexion, that the burglary happened overnight between Sunday and Monday (October 4 - 5) at the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Issoire (Puy-de-Dôme), where the book was being exhibited.

One of the main gates to the arts centre had been damaged.

The cover forms part of ‘L'Apocalypse de Saint Jean,’ a book commissioned by French art publisher Joseph Foret.

The book, of which only a single copy exists, was conceived as an illustrated and annotated version of the Book of Revelation and it was created between 1958 to 1961 on sheepskin parchment.

The text is illustrated with works from famous 20th-Century artists including Salvador Dali, Georges Mathieu, Bernard Buffet, and Leonor Fini.

The book also includes notes and musings on the text from famous authors and cultural figures of the time including Jean Cocteau, Jean Rostand, Emil Cioran, Jean Giono, and Ernst Junger.

It should be noted that in October last year, thieves dressed as workers stole eight historic pieces of jewelry worth approximately €88 million from the Apollo Gallery at the Louvre Museum. The theft took just four minutes and took place during the museum’s regular opening hours.