£20 Million Painting Found in Elderly Women's Kitchen

by Jodie Costello

A Cimabue panel found over a hotplate in Compiègne has sold for £20 million ($26.6 million) at Acteon Auction House. The previous owner, a 90 year old woman who was advised by a furniture valuing auctioneer to have it authenticated, will receive ‘the majority’ of the money from the auction sale.

The painting titled Christ Mocked is a single scene in Cimabues now fragmented polyptych of the Passion. It depicts Christ, painted in the stiff Byzantinian style popularised in the late 13th century, being ridiculed by the crowds that will later follow him to Golgotha. He is not blindfolded, a detail that distinguishes the scene from Cimabue’s Northern European contemporaries. As described by Apollo Magazine, the ‘confusing chain of limbs’ has Christ being stricken with rods, slashed with swords, and having his halo removed.

Cimabue, Christ Mocked, (1280), tempera on wood, 10 inches.

The panels are believed to be approximately eight in number, with one panel being located in the Frick Collection in New York and another in the National Gallery. Auctioneers had valued the painting to reach a price of $6 million, an assessment the painting quickly surpassed when bought by a private collector through the acting proxy, Fabrizio Moretti. Moretti, a London-based art dealer, stated in a New York Times interview: ‘it is one of the most important old master discoveries in the last 15 years. Cimabue is the beginning of everything. He started modern art. When I held the picture in my hands, I almost cried.’

Moretti is correct in his opinion of Cimabue; the artist was one of the earliest painters to move from a Byzantinian style to that of the early Renaissance. He was praised by Vasari in his book ‘Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects’, and Dante declared his exceptional skill in the Divine Comedy. Cimabue’s Crucifix, located in Florence, is considered to be the artist’s magnum opus, however it was badly damaged by flood water in 1966. Therefore, new Cimabue works seemed to be a distant dream for both collectors and historians. The fantastic condition of the panel piece adds to the painting’s charm – gold leaf detailing has remained undamaged during the 800 years that it has been in circulation. Moreover, no signature can be found on the canvas, a missing detail on many Cimabue paintings that results in a plethora being erroneously attributed to other artists.

Reconstruction of Cimabue’s polyptych. Blank slots represent lost panels.

It is unknown who owned the painting before the elderly woman; the family did not believe it to be of much importance, attributing it to a Byzantinian icon painter. The piece has now set a world record for an medieval painting sold at auction. Such a painting offers an stimulating indication into the art world before the Renaissance, a transition that was monumental to the reception of art. The unfortunate history that has followed works by Cimabue – whether it be works damaged or lost – has been redeemed by such a prodigious finding.

Bibliography

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Hoare, Callum. 2019. "Lost 740-Year-Old Jesus Painting Found In Woman's Kitchen Sells For £21Million". Express.Co.Uk. https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1196668/jesus-christ-cimabue-painting-picardy-france-auction-acteon-house-sold-spt.

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"Masterpiece Found In French Kitchen Fetches €24M". 2019. BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50201691?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cjnwl8q4gjnt/art&link_location=live-reporting-story.

Rea, Naomi. 2019. "A Lost Cimabue Masterpiece Found Hanging In An Elderly French Woman’S Kitchen Sold For A Stunning $26.8 Million". Artnet News. https://news.artnet.com/market/cimabue-27-million-1690672.

Reyburn, Scott. 2019. "Cimabue Painting Discovered In French Kitchen Fetches Nearly $27 Million". Nytimes.Com. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/arts/design/cimabue-painting-auction.html.