A priceless collection of almost 17,000 artworks and antiques has been lost by the French State, many of them stolen by politicians, ambassadors and officials.

The lost works are among paintings, sculptures and pieces of furniture made available to decorate public buildings and official residences. The losses are catalogued in the damning report of a ten-year inquiry to be published next month. Thousands of works are thought to have been dumped in warehouses and cellars and forgotten, according to the Cultural Ministry’s Committee for Counting.

Many have probably been destroyed without anyone bothering to notify central agencies. Others, says the report, have been taken by members of the French elite. A recent ambassador to Denmark, for instance, is believed to have walked away with an 18th-century Louis XV commode when he retired. The commode was one of a pair and the embassy covered up the disappearance by ordering a copy from a modern furniture maker, according to the magazine L’Express.

French Foreign Ministry officials say that they regularly hear reports of antiques from the country’s Central European embassies on sale at the Naschmarkt flea market in Vienna.

The confusion is so widespread that it is easy to take items without being caught, according to investigators. This year, three Lodève tapestries worth a total of €110,000 (£74,000), which vanished from the French mission to the United Nations in New York, were put up for sale by a Parisian antique dealer. In 2000, a 13th-century Hebrew Bible, codenamed H52, that belonged to the French National Library was sold by Christie’s auction house for $368,000 (£185,000). The library got it back this year, although it refused to say how much it had had to pay.

More than 500 lawsuits have been filed as a result of the investigation, headed by the auditor Jean-Pierre Bady.

Philippe Douste-Blazy, who stepped down as Foreign Minister this month, reported a series of artworks as missing, presumed stolen, from his ministry and asked the police to investigate. He also sent a letter to ambassadors, advising them that they risked legal action if art or furniture disappeared from their embassies.

However, magistrates say that such cases rarely result in a prosecution. “We are dealing with powerful people and I don’t want to have an attitude which is too heavy-handed,” Mr Bady told Le Monde. “Our role is mainly to make sure people are informed.”

His investigation began when the French Public Audit Office discovered that the State had failed to keep track of the thousands of works of art and antiques made available to ministries, embassies and local government offices.

The most recent inventory was made in 1950 and even that was incomplete, according to officials, who say the last detailed list dates from 1894.

Mr Bady’s committee has traced 120,000 of the works and established that 16,698 have disappeared. It has also managed to recover some of the missing artworks.

A 17th-century painting by the Italian artist Domenico Zampieri, The Virgin and Child appearing to St Francis of Assisi or St Anthony of Padua, was discovered in the house of a solicitor in Toul, eastern France, after it disappeared from the local museum. The solicitor said that he had bought it from an antique dealer in the 1990sfor Fr1,500 (£155).

Another work, the Immaculate Conception, painted by Jean-François Boisselat in the 19th century, was lost by Cherbourg town hall in northern France and found by Mr Bady in a garage.

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