The Louvre Museum in Paris has added a “national treasure” to its collection four years after it was discovered during a house clearance.
“Christ Mocked” by the Florentine painter Cimabue was found in an elderly woman’s house in the town of Compiegne in 2019. She had kept the rare artwork – which she thought was a Greek religious icon – in her kitchen.
The unsuspecting owner of the piece did not know where the 10-inch by 8-inch painting had come from, said Jerome Montcouquil of art specialists Cabinet Turquin, which was asked to carry out tests on the painting following its discovery, at the time.
The painting, which dates from 1280, went on to fetch almost 24.2 million euros ($26.8 million) at auction in October 2019, more than four times the pre-sale estimate.
But the French government then stepped in to block its export, assigning the painting “national treasure” status.
The move kept the tiny, ultra-rare painting in the country for 30 months, during which time the government raised the funds to buy it for the nation.
Now, France’s minister of culture, Rima Abdul Malak, and the president and director of the Louvre Museum, Laurence des Cars, have announced that the painting forms part of the museum’s collection.
“These acquisitions are the result of an exceptional mobilization of the Louvre Museum which allows to preserve in France works coveted by the greatest museums of the world and to make them accessible to all,” said the ministry in a statement, without providing any further details on how the money was raised.
Source: cnn.com
