Egyptian Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmud personally joined an investigation of a Van Gogh painting worth over $50 million stolen from a Cairo museum, Egyptian media said.

The work of art, known as both Poppy Flowers and Vase with Flowers was stolen from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum on Saturday.

Meguid inspected the museum, where he confirmed information that none of the alarms and only seven out of 43 surveillance cameras were functioning at the museum.

"The cameras had not been working for a long time, and neither had the alarm system," he said.

"There are 43 security cameras but only seven are working. Each painting is protected by an alarm but again, none are working," he continued.

Meguid stressed the need to strengthen security after nine paintings were stolen in March last year from Mohammed Ali Pasha's palace, in northern Cairo.

Egypt's Culture Minister Farouk Hosni earlier said police recovered the painting by the Dutch post-Impressionist just hours after it was stolen.

But later on Sunday Hosni said that the painting was still missing.

Hosni blamed his earlier mistaken statement on the painting's recovery and the arrest of suspects in the theft on erroneous information provided by a ministry official.

It is the second time that the painting has been stolen from the Khalil museum. The canvass was previously taken from the museum in 1978 and recovered only a decade later in Kuwait.

CAIRO, August 22 (RIA Novosti)