A work by French impressionist painter Edgar Degas was stolen Wednesday from a museum in Marseille, France.

Les Choristes (The Chorus), a pastel showing a line of male chorus singers in the midst of a performance, went missing overnight, police said.

The small work has been valued at 800,000 euros ($1.2 million Cdn).

It is one of 20 works by Degas on loan to the Cantini Museum in Marseille from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Degas is a 19th-century French painter known for his portraits of ballet dancers and other performers.

Police report there was no sign of a break-in but that the work was missing when staff opened the museum on Thursday morning.

The museum is to remain closed while the theft is under investigation.

The exhibition of Degas, Toulouse Lautrec and Gustav Klimt was to end Jan. 3 and travel to Italy and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.