A Sydney artist has faith that the "priceless" painting that took her more than 100 hours to complete will be returned after it was taken by someone in just minutes in a suspected case of mistaken street bounty. 

Rachael Egan was in the process of moving home in Erskineville on Tuesday afternoon when the centrepiece of her upcoming solo exhibition disappeared from the footpath.

In the chaos, the 26-year-old did not realise it was missing until she woke up the next morning and thought: "Where on earth is that painting?"

"I moved everything in and out that whole day. We did a lot of rounds from the car, and we would have definitely seen it outside the front," she told 9news.com.au.

"So I think there was like a five- to 10-minute window when it was outside and someone took it. It wouldn

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