The painting was found hanging outside a door in a house in northern France. It has been in the same family since 1900, but they did not even know that they were the owners of an expensive painting.
A rare painting by the 17th-century Dutch artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger has been discovered in a private home in France. It is one of the versions of his famous work “The Village Advocate” (“Notary’s Office”). The canvas is called “exceptional” and is considered one of his greatest known works. The painting will be auctioned in Paris at the end of this month. It is reported by The Guardian.
The work, 112 cm high and 184 cm wide and valued at up to 800,000 euros, is a version of the Village Lawyer painting that Brueghel reproduced up to 90 times. It is believed to have been written between 1615 and 1617.
Malo de Lussac of the auction house Daguerre Val de Loire, who found the painting during an inspection at the request of the family, who wished to remain anonymous, said he could hardly believe what he had stumbled upon. He sent the painting to Germany for analysis, where its authenticity was confirmed.
“The family called her” Brueghel “, but they did not even suspect that this was a real painting of the author. They thought it was a copy, just an ornament that does not cost a lot of money,” said de Lussac.
Painting “Village Lawyer”, which Brueghel reproduced up to 90 times
Photo: The Guardian
Pieter Brueghel Jr. is a Dutch painter. He painted landscapes, religious scenes (including various images of hell), village scenes and flowers, and actively copied his father’s most popular works.
The Village Lawyer, sometimes known as “The Tax Collector’s Office”, “The Notary’s Office”, “Paying Tithes”, or “The Bad Deeds Lawyer”, is one of his rare original compositions and depicts a chaotic scene with villagers queuing outside the lawyer’s chamber . Many of them are holding gifts, including eggs and poultry.
Previously, Focus wrote that a Kandinsky painting stolen by the Nazis would be sold for $45 million. The abstract masterpiece once belonged to Johanna Margareti Stern, a German art collector who died in Auschwitz in 1944.
It was also reported that the Metropolitan Museum in the United States recognized Repin, Kuindzhi and Aivazovsky as Ukrainians. The institution has changed the captions for the artists’ paintings exhibited in the gallery. The description of Kuindzhi’s work “Red Sunset” states that the museum in Mariupol, which bears his name, was destroyed by a Russian airstrike.
