The Boston Globe reported that the work, considered to be worth about $2.8 million, has disappeared from the college's Davis Museum and Cultural Center.

The crate where the artwork was stored during the museum's recent renovation has been destroyed, leading some to fear the painting was obliterated along with it, the newspaper said.

"It's very sad and upsetting that it's gone," Wellesley art historian Patricia Gray Berman told the Globe. "It's a great painting and I hope it comes home."

Police have been notified that the painting has vanished and the work has been listed with the Art Loss Register, an online database of stolen or lost pieces, the newspaper said, adding that the museum's insurer has paid a claim on the missing artwork.