This family from Toulouse did not imagine selling this canvas for 2.8 million euros
This family never imagined owning a work of such great value. A painting representing an angel, painted in 1520, has been sold 2.8 million euros at an auction on Friday in Toulouse.
The work of the German painter Bernhard Strigel (1460-1528) was revealed in a pile of paintings, placed on a bed in a bedroom in a Toulouse apartment, explains Pauline Maringe, auctioneer of the Artpaugée auction house .
She first thought it was a copy
Following an inventory for an insurance company during the summer of 2021, the owners of the work requested an estimate.
When I saw this painting, it was in an exceptional state of preservation for a painting that has survived five centuries. We pointed it out to our expert, who authenticated it,” continues Pauline Maringe.
At first she thought it was a copy.
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An institution purchased the painting
Is the buyer Louvre Abu Dhabi who recently bought his pendant? “The buyer did not recommend his identity, it is an institution confined itself to saying the auctioneer.
“The two angels are apparently the pieces of an altarpiece. We do not know where the central part is”
The amount of the transaction for “The Thuriferous Angel dressed in a yellow tunic” greatly exceeded the estimate, from 600 to 800,000 euros.
They did not know that it was an exceptional work
In this family of the Toulouse bourgeoisie, the painting was passed down from generation to generation and had been baptized “The guardian angel of the family”. They knew it was a valuable painting without suspecting that it was an exceptional work.
The first trace of the work in France dates back to 1816, when the two paintings were separated. Bernhard Strigel was the portrait painter of Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519).