His discovery was the result of a happy accident. The small 25 cm painting, entitled “The Derision of Christ”, was discovered in the home of a nonagenarian in Oise, during an inventory.
This is one of the highlights of the exhibition dedicated to Cimabue, this 13th century Italian painter which opened the way to naturalism, and which opens Wednesday January 22 at the Louvre. The work shows Christ being mocked by the crowd just before his crucifixion.
In September 2019, a 90-year-old woman living in Compiègne called on an auctioneer to have her furniture and trinkets that she wanted to sell appraised. The auctioneer then notices, hanging in the kitchen, above the cooking plates, a small painted wooden panel. The elderly lady, who no longer remembers where she bought it, thinks that it is a simple, worthless Russian icon. But after expertise, the verdict falls: it is one of the eight scenes from Cimabue's diptychdismantled, probably in the 19th century, by an art dealer who was undoubtedly looking to make his fortune.
A restored treasure
Until then, only two other parts were known, kept in New York and London. Estimated between 4 and 6 million euros, the work is being offered at auction. The price soars to reach 24 million euros.
The State will then classify the work as a national treasureuntil the Louvre can raise the sum necessary for its purchase. In 2023, the painting enters the collections of the Louvre, five years after its discovery and restoration. So here it is, for the first time, exhibited with the two other panels of this diptych.
The exhibition Review Cimabue can be discovered at the Louvre Museum until May 12.
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