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Rare Italian masterpiece found in French kitchen sold for €24 million

A rare masterpiece by Italian early Renaissance master Cimabue that was discovered in a French kitchen was sold on Sunday for 24 million euros – some five times the initial estimate.

Published: 28 October 2019 09:00 CET
Rare Italian masterpiece found in French kitchen sold for €24 million
"Christ Mocked', the attributed to Cimabue, was found in a French kitchen. Photo: Philippe Lopez/AFP

The Acteon auction house did not identify the winning bidder for the painting, “Christ Mocked”, at the sale in Senlis, outside Paris.

READ ALSO: Old French lady discovers Italian Renaissance masterpiece in her kitchen

The selling price, which included costs, smashed the initial estimate of between four million and six million euros.

Bidding began at three million euros, with only three of the eight bidders present at the auction.

It is the first time in decades that a painting by Cimabue, a pioneering primitive painter who lived from 1272-1302 and is also known as Cenni di Pepo, has gone under the hammer.

Acteon said the figure was the highest ever reached for a mediaeval painting and the eighth-highest ever reached for a mediaeval or old master painting.

The highest figure ever reached for a painting was the $450 million paid for the Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and sold at auction in 2017.

Experts in September announced the sensational discovery of the painting by Cimabue which was owned by a woman in the northern French town of Compiegne, who had it hanging between her kitchen and her sitting room

She believed it was merely an old religious icon when she took it to the auctioneers to be valued.

Rare example of a Cimabue

The tiny unsigned work, measuring just 26 by 20 centimetres (10 by eight inches), was found to be in excellent condition, though covered in grime from having been displayed right above a cooking hotplate.

Art experts at Turquin in Paris used infrared reflectology to confirm that the piece is part of a larger diptych from 1280, when Cimabue painted eight scenes of the passion and crucifixion of Christ. Each of the two panels in the diptych had four scenes.

Only two other elements of the diptych are known to exist: “The Flagellation of Christ” displayed at the Frick in New York, and “The Virgin and Child with Two Angels” at the National Gallery in London.

Cimabue is renowned for his mosaics, frescoes and altarpieces. Historians say only about a dozen works on wood – all unsigned are thought to have been made by the Italian artist.

His more natural and nuanced depictions marked a turning point for Italian painters still influenced by highly stylised Byzantine art.

Art historians consider him a trailblazer for the creative Renaissance that would flourish under greats like Giotto, one of Cimabue's pupils.

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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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