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Old French lady discovers Italian Renaissance masterpiece in her kitchen

An early Renaissance masterpiece by the Florentine master Cimabue has been discovered in an old lady's kitchen in a town near Paris, art experts said on Monday.

Published: 24 September 2019 10:04 CEST
Old French lady discovers Italian Renaissance masterpiece in her kitchen
'Christ Mocked', the painting newly attributed to Cimabue. Photo: Philippe Lopez/AFP

'Christ Mocked', by the 13th-century artist who taught Giotto, is estimated to be worth between 4 and 6 million euros, according to the Old Masters specialists Turquin.

They said the work was owned by an old lady in the northern French town of Compiegne, who had it hanging between her kitchen and her sitting room. It was directly above a hotplate for cooking food.

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The painting is thought to be part of a large diptych dating from 1280 when Cimabue painted eight scenes depicting Christ's passion and crucifixion. Two other scenes from the work hang in the National Gallery in London — 'The Virgin and Child with Two Angels' — and the Frick Collection in New York ('The Flagellation of Christ').

The scene in the National Gallery was also lost for centuries, and only found when a British aristocrat was clearing his ancestral seat in Suffolk. It was given to the nation in 2000.


'The Virgin and Child with Two Angels' by Cimabue, now in the National Gallery in London.

The French painting's elderly owner thought it was just a rather old religious icon when she took it to her local auctioneers to be valued.

Early Renaissance art was hugely influenced by Byzantine art, which is still produced in a similar style today on a background of gold paint.

Tests using infrared light found that there was “no disputing that the painting was done by the same hand” as other known works by Cimabue, said art expert Eric Turquin.

It will now go under the hammer at the Acteon auction house in Senlis, north of Paris, on October 27th.

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CULTURE

Crime, poverty and the British: 12 things that may surprise you about the French Riviera town of Cannes

For 11 days every Spring, Cannes, on the Mediterranean coast of France, becomes the glamorous home of the film world’s glitterati - but there's a lot more to the town that starlets and red carpets.

Published: 17 May 2023 09:45 CEST
Crime, poverty and the British: 12 things that may surprise you about the French Riviera town of Cannes

But while the great and the good of cinema only tread the temporarily laid – and regularly cleaned – red carpet in the port town for a couple of weeks in May, there’s more to Cannes than meets the camera lens.

Here are a few facts you may not know about the glitzy Alpes-Maritimes’ resort.

It’s old

Cannes has existed since the Iron Age. The Ligurian Oxybii tribe established a fishing village on what is now Cannes known as Aegitna early in the second century BCE. 

Then, nothing happened

Other than a bit of a squabble with the Romans around 154BCE, for centuries not a lot beyond daily life really happened in the sleepy fishing village.

It wasn’t until the 19th century that Cannes became anything other than a quiet place by the sea and a stopping point en route to somewhere else. Then, British noble Lord Brougham discovered the town’s quaint charm – today, there’s even a statue of m’noble lud in the town.

Suddenly, everything changed

After Brougham ‘discovered’ Cannes, it became – like Nice, 60km or so up the coast – an It-town playground for well-to-do Brits in Europe. A casino, esplanade, and a series of smart hotels quickly popped up. Today, with its exclusive boutiques lining numerous streets it is sometimes referred to as the Sister City to Beverly Hills.

READ ALSO The mayor of Nice explains why his is the ‘most British’ town in France

Major events

As well as the Film Festival, Cannes hosts other major annual events such as the MIPIM, MIPTV, MIDEM, Cannes Lions, and the NRJ Music Awards.[14] There is an annual television festival in the last week in September.

Natural history

The mimosa plant that brightens up early Spring in and around Cannes is not native to the area. It was brought to the south of France in the 19th century by the British… from Australia.

Literary links

One of the tiny Lérins Islands off the coast of Cannes is Île Sainte-Marguerite, which was the prison for the real-life Man in the Iron Mask, a political prisoner reputed to be of royal blood whose story was later turned into a blockbuster tale by Alexandre Dumas. You can still visit fortress prison where he was interned for 11 years.

Population boom

The population of Cannes is about 75,000, according to French national statistics office Insee. Around the time of the film festival, however, it’s closer to 200,000.

Biarritz links

It may seem that the resort on the Atlantic coast would have little to do with the resort on the Mediterranean coast, but movie history was nearly very different. Cannes only got the film festival that shines a spotlight on the town every year because Biarritz – the organisers’ first choice location – could not afford to host it.

Crime scene

One of the biggest jewel heists in history took place in Cannes on July 28th, 2013, when one criminal ran off with €102 million in jewels from a temporary diamond exhibition at the famous Carlton Intercontinental Hotel. An active police investigation was officially shut down a decade later, with no clue as to the identity of the thief, or what had happened to the jewels.

Wages

Despite the riches on show during the film festival and in the exclusive boutiques lining one side of the beachfront La Croisette, Cannes is not as wealthy as its facade appears. The average net monthly salary in 2019 was €2,251, according to Journal du Net, below the French average of €2,524.

Property prices

Cannes does, however, regularly make the news for his vastly expensive property prices. The average price per square metre is €5,942 for an apartment or  €7,302 for a house – not quite as expensive as Paris but way above the French average of €3,367 per square metre.

Lower than average wages and higher than average property prices mean that many of the people who live and work in Cannes have been priced out of the area.  

Poverty

A total of 18.4 percent of families in Cannes fall under the poverty rate, higher than the national average of 13.9 per cent. The Gini index – which measures wealth inequality – for Cannes is 40 per cent, compared to the national average of 30 percent.

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