Ben Chapman of the New York Daily News reports on an outrage: Someone at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx ordered painters to paint over a priceless mural created during the New Deal era, in anticipation of a visit to the school by then Schools’ Chancellor Carmen Farina. Farina never made the visit, but the painting by a noted artist was “slathered over” by “high-gloss cotton-candy blue paint.”

“Constellations” by German-born painter Alfred Floegel was installed on the ceiling outside DeWitt Clinton’s library in 1940. It depicted the stars in the heavens alongside another large-scale Floegel mural called “History of the World.”

The paintings, deemed Floegel’s masterpieces, were both used in history lessons. They also appear in the Department of Education’s online art collection, “Public Art for Public Schools.”

“It is a kind of Sistine Chapel of New Deal artworks,” wrote Richard Walker, a University of California/Berkley professor who directs the Living New Deal project, which aims to preserve New Deal-era artworks.

Floegel, who was born in 1894 and died in 1976, worked on the paintings for six years, Walker wrote in 2015 on his project’s website. At the time, he was teaching night courses at DeWitt Clinton, school staffers said.

Half of his masterpiece disappeared in November, when construction workers painted over the ceiling mural to spruce up for a visit by then-schools chancellor Carmen Farina, according to school staffers.

Farina never made the visit.

Education Department officials tell a different story — they say the painting was covered over as workers repaired damage to the building.

Whatever the reason, the loss of the mural stunned students and educators.

“It was like if you went to see the Mona Lisa and someone painted it blue,” one school staffer said. “People were devastated.”

This was not a matter of taste. This is bureaucratic vandalism. And no one will admit who issued the order.