After being owned by dukes, archdukes and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, sacked by Napoleon and stolen at the end of the 20th century, Titian’s youthful masterpiece entitled “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” will be the protagonist on July 2 of Christie’s “Old Masters Part I” auction in London.
«Sublime work»
It’s one of the last religious works of the famous first years of the Belluno artist to remain in private hands and was auctioned by Christie’s, the last time, in 1878, before entering the collection of Longleat House. Aspiring buyers in 2024 are being offered the very rare opportunity to become part of the next chapter in the history of this legendary painting: the painting is estimated among the 15 million and 25 million pounds (approximately 17.7-29.6 million euros). «This sublime youthful masterpiece by Titian is one of the most poetic products of his youth – the words of Orlando Rock, president of Christie’s UK – this magical devotional painting has the rare notoriety of having been stolen not once but twice: the first by Napoleon and the second at the end of the nineties. We are honored to have been commissioned to bring this important and beautifully observed painting to the London market next July.”
The history of the painting
The list of illustrious provenances of this 46.2cm x 62.9cm oil on canvas begins with its first documentation in the Venetian merchant’s collection Bartolomeo della Naveat the beginning of the seventeenth century, which included no fewer than fifteen works by Titian, including “The Gypsy Madonna” from around 1511, “Violante” from around 1510-15, the “Nymph and the Shepherd” from around 1570 (all in Vienna, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum) and the artist’s mature masterpiece of 1565-76, “The Death of Actaeon,” now in the National Gallery, London. The collection was bought in bulk by the 1st Duke of Hamilton and sent to England, only to be sold to the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, governor of the Netherlands from 1647 to 1656. Titian’s painting remained in the imperial collection where it was looted by French troops in 1809 to be destined for the Musée Napoléon. It later became the property of Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar (1797-1864)Scottish landowner, amateur artist and patron of the arts, from whom John Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath purchased it in 1878, who hung it in the Wilshire mansion from which it was stolen in 1995. It was found seven years later, unframed in a duffel bag at a London bus stop, thanks to the intervention of detective Charles Hill, a former Scotland Yard officer, after a reward of 100 thousand pounds had been placed on the painting: a mere trifle compared to what could be beaten next July 2nd.
In private hands
«This is one of the artist’s very few masterpieces remaining in private hands – he underlines Andrew Fletcher, Global Head of Old Masters at Christie’s -. It is a painting that embodies the revolution in painting brought about by Titian at the beginning of the 16th century and is a truly exceptional example of the artist’s pioneering approach both to the use of color and the representation of shape human nature in the natural world, the artistic vocabulary that secured his status as the first Venetian painter to achieve fame throughout Europe during his lifetime, and his position as one of the greatest painters in the history of Western art.” The auction of July 2nd falls within the scope of the most important Christie’s season dedicated to the Old Masters in over a decade in which, in addition to Titian, works by Frans Hals, Quentin Metsys, George Stubbs and Richard Parkes Bonington will also be sold. To participate in the auction this is the link.
