THERE is mystery over a lost £25million masterpiece abandoned in a plastic bag at a bus stop as it goes on sale nearly 30 years later.
And it it’s going up for sale tomorrow with an estimate of £15m to £20m, 30 years after it was recovered in a carrier bag at a London bus stop.
This Titian masterpiece, named Rest on the Flight into Egypt, which depicts the Holy Family in repose in a bucolic landscape, was painted when Titian was approximately 20 years old.
Since then, it has gained a tumultuous past; it was passed through the ownership of Archdukes and Holy Roman Emperors, and was looted by Napoleon’s troops in Vienna, Austria, in 1809.
Acquired by the 4th Marquess of Bath in 1878, it has been in the collection of his Wiltshire estate, Longleat, ever since, until 1995 when it was stolen.
The picture was then missing for seven years until it was found in 2002 in a carrier bag at a London bus stop, thankfully unharmed but without its frame, after a £100K reward for information was offered, although there is some mystery over whether a ransom demand was ever issued or the reward was ever paid.
It was found in a carrier bag in Greater London by a leading art detective of the time – the late Charles Hill, a former Scotland Yard officer and security advisor to the Historic Houses Association.
The same detective is also credited with recovering Edvard Munch’s The Scream, stolen that same decade.
The painting was returned to Longleat, and has since been lent only once (to the National Gallery in 2012).
Almost 150 years since it last came up for auction, this is a rare chance to see the work close-up, and in the words of Christie’s Maja Markovic, ‘appreciate the pictorial poetry that secured Titian’s reputation as the greatest painter of the Venetian Renaissance.’
Christie’s international deputy chairman Henry Pettifer commented on this painting.
“The picture has a remarkably illustrious history, but it is its theft from Longleat in 1995 that seems to have captured the wider public’s imagination”, said Henry.
“It was famously stolen from the first-floor State Drawing Room and was missing for seven years until it was found, in 2002, in a carrier bag at a London bus stop, thankfully unharmed, after a reward was offered.”
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) was born in Pieve di Cadore, a small town at the foot of the Dolomites on the Venetian side of the Alps
When he was about 10 years old, Titian arrived in Venice, then one of the wealthiest and most cosmopolitan cities in the world.
Titian started his artistic training in the workshop of the mosaicist Sebastiano Zuccato
He later briefly joined Gentile Bellini’s workshop
After Gentile’s death in 1507, Titian joined the workshop of Gentile’s brother, Giovanni Bellini.
By 1511 Titian launched his independent career in Venice
In the same year he painted his celebrated frescoes in the ‘Scuola del Santo’ in Padua.
These features made his work fundamental to the development of Venetian – and also European – painting.
Titian was also commissioned to paint prestigious public religious paintings. His Venetian success was sealed by the execution of
the altarpiece for the high altar of the important Franciscan church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice.
The so-called ‘Assunta’ (Assumption of the Virgin Mary) was displayed in 1518, creating a revolutionary watershed in Venetian altarpiece design.
Between 1519 and 1526, he painted the celebrated ‘Pala Pesaro’ for the same church
Early in 1516 Titian started his professional relationship with Alfonso I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara
In 1525 he married Cecilia (who tragically died in 1530).
Titian and Cecilia had three children, who were all given the names of famous figures from ancient Rome: Pompeo, Orazio and Lavinia.
Titian’s meeting with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in Bologna in 1530 would be a determining event in his life.
On this occasion Titian executed a (now lost) full-length, life-size portrait of the Emperor – an early example of what was still an extremely innovative genre at that time.
The last phase of Titian’s life coincided with a radical revision of his own style and painting technique.
In the late 1560s and early 1570s, when Titian was already extremely old, he pushed his art to the edge of abstraction.
This later style has been defined as ‘magic impressionism’. All of this is well represented by two of his latest works, The Death of Actaeon at the National Gallery, and the ‘Pietà’, now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice.
The ‘Pietà’ was originally destined for his own tomb in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, where Titian was buried after dying of the plague on 27 August 1576.
The above information was provided by the National Gallery.
Andrew Fletcher, Christie’s global head of Old Masters commented on this listing.
“This is the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation and one of the very few masterpieces by the artist remaining in private hands,” said Andrew.
“It is a truly outstanding example of the artist’s pioneering approach to both the use of colour and the representation of the human form in the natural world.”
The Titian masterpiece will headline Christie’s Old Masters Part I sale on July 2.
“By the time Titian died in 1576, he had gained the reputation of being one of the greatest painters that had ever lived – an accolade that still persists to this day”, reads the listing.
“The Longleat Rest on the Flight into Egypt has an impeccable provenance, having passed through some of the greatest collections in Europe, and has not appeared on the market since its sale at Christie’s in 1878.
“Its sale now presents a unique opportunity to become part of this painting’s remarkable history.”
