Thursday, July 4, 2024 - A painting once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries has been sold for a whopping $22m.
The artwork by legendary artist Titian was
stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995 but seven years later it was
found inside a white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by
an art detective.
This week, the oil painting “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt” sold for more
than $22 million at auction house, Christie’s.
It was a record for the Renaissance artist,
whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice.
Ahead of the sale, the auction house billed it as “the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.”“This result is a tribute to the impeccable provenance and quiet beauty of this sublime early masterpiece by Titian, which is one of the most poetic products of the artist’s youth,” Orlando Rock, chairman of Christie’s U.K., said in a statement.
The artwork was inspired by a biblical
event when Joseph took Mary and a young Jesus to Egypt after a dream warned him
that King Herod was seeking to kill his son, Christie’s said. The painting
depicts Mary cradling Jesus as Joseph looks on in a rural setting.
Titian is known for his use of the
“colorito” technique, where colour is employed dominantly for sensual
expressive purposes and as an element of the composition. He gained
international fame for his religious paintings, incisive portraits and poetic
renditions of mythological subjects, the Metropolitan Museum of Art says.
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