The ‘national treasure’ found in the kitchen finally goes to the Louvre

After nearly four years in which the French government raised funds to pay more than 24 million euros to preserve Cimabue’s works in the country, the small and extremely rare painting will be displayed to the world.

The Louvre Museum in Paris has added a “national treasure” to its collection, four years after it was discovered while cleaning a house.

“The Mockery of Christ” by the Florentine painter Cimbue, it was Found in an elderly woman’s house In the French city of Compiègne in 2019. She had kept the rare artwork – which she thought was a Greek religious symbol – in her kitchen.

The owner of the unsuspecting piece did not know where the 10-by-8-inch painting came from, said Jerome Montcaucil, an art specialist at the Tourcoigne Cabinet, who was asked to conduct tests on the painting after its discovery.

The painting, which dates back to 1280, was valued at about 24.2 million euros at an auction in October 2019, more than four times its pre-sale estimate.

But the French government intervened to prevent its export, and granted the painting the status of “national treasure.”

The move kept the extremely rare mini tire in the country for 30 months, during which time the government raised money to purchase it for the nation.

Now, French Minister of Culture Rima Abdel Malik and Louvre President and Director Laurence de Carre have announced that the painting is part of the museum’s collection.

The ministry said in a statement, “These collections are the result of an exceptional mobilization carried out by the Louvre Museum, which makes it possible to preserve in France the works that the greatest museums in the world aspire to and make them accessible to everyone.” Details on how to raise money.

The ministry continues to describe the painting as “a decisive milestone in the history of art, representing a remarkable transition from icon to painting.”

Only about 15 works by Cimabue are known, which is why the painting is considered a “national treasure of great importance,” the French government adds.

It will join Cimabue’s much larger painting “Maesta” in the Louvre’s collection, and both works will be part of an exhibition in spring 2025.

Cimabue is the pseudonym of the artist Cini di Beppo, who was born in Florence around 1240. He is known as the discoverer and teacher of Giotto, widely considered one of the greatest artists of the pre-Renaissance era.

The Mockery of Christ is part of a diptych of eight scenes centered around the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ.

The National Museum in London includes another scene from the work “The Virgin and Child with Two Angels,” which the gallery acquired in 2000. The work was lost for several centuries, until a British aristocrat found it in his ancestral home in Suffolk, according to what was reported by the British newspaper “Daily Mail”. To Agence France-Presse.

Another painting, “The Flagellation of Christ,” is in the Frick Collection in New York.