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Rare cello robbed at knifepoint returned to French musician

Award-winning cellist Ophélie Gaillard was robbed by a knife-wielding thief of her 18th-century cello, estimated to be worth 1.3 million euros, outside her home in the Paris suburb of Pantin on Thursday, but after an impassioned appeal for its return relayed by social media she received an anonymous call to inform her it had been placed in a car in front of her house, where she found it.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

An 18th-Century cello has been returned to a French musician after an appeal following her knifepoint robbery, reports BBC News.

Ophélie Gaillard was robbed of the instrument and her mobile phone outside her home in Paris on Thursday.

After putting an appeal on Facebook, she received an anonymous call saying it was in a car outside her home. She found a window smashed but the instrument in "good condition".

The rare instrument is worth about 1.3 million euros ($1.6m; £1.2m)

Made in 1737 by Italian instrument-maker Francesco Gofriller, it was loaned to Ms Gaillard from Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC) bank.

The instrument was stolen in its case, along with a bow that was itself almost 200 years old.

The 43-year-old award-winning cellist told police her attacker forced her to hand the instrument over at knifepoint before fleeing on foot in the north-eastern Paris suburb of Pantin.

"The theft was very violent; I have not been able to sleep for two days. I am so relieved to have found it. I'm coming out of a two-day nightmare - it's a miracle," she told the AFP news agency.

Read more of this report from BBC News.