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Cimabue’s ‘Christ Mocked’ was found in the kitchen when a French elderly lady plan to move out. All the time that millions worth art piece was hanging in the kitchen, she didn’t know that is an oeuvre of medieval Italian grandmaster.
The discovery
In October 2019, this painting was auctioned at an impressive price of around $27m, which was recorded as the highest auction of medieval painting. This is a once in a blue moon in the art world since Cimabue’s works, which mostly created around the end of the 13th century, are very rare. It’s hard to evaluate if the auction was reasonable or overprice because of lacking the reference price. With a pre-auction valuation of $4.4 – 6.6m, the final price hammered at $26.4m or about five-six times more than the appraised value.
By the way,
Who is Cimabue?
Cimabue is actually an alias “bull’s head,” which used by Cenni di Pepo. He was born in 1240 in Florence and heavily practiced Florentine School’s artistic style. He was a pioneer to shun aways of Byzantine art, which was very popular in those days. Cimabue’s work applied perspective theory to create more dimension and depth to his painting. He also elaborated on figure’s anatomical proportions making his work more realistic.
Giorgio Vasari, artist and art historian of the Renaissance period, indicated that Cimabue is a master of Giotto di Bondone who reinvented the artistic thinking of his time and was praised by many late artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.
According to Vasari’s journals, Cimabue was so fond of perfection. When he found, or someone told him, any flaw in his work, Cimabue will immediately destroy that work. Regardless of how much it valued.
The lost art from medieval times
“Christ Mocked” is 25.8 x 20.3 cm size created in 1280. The painting depicted the biblical scene “Jesus is mocked.” and be a part of “Diptych of Devotion” series that contain others seven paintings that also describe different Bible stories. Only three paintings out of eight were currently found, all are in the first section of Diptych.
From the top left of the plan “Virgin and Child with Two Angels” (National Gallery, London).
On the lower right is the “The Flagellation of Christ” (Frick Collection, New York (New York City Museum),
and the last image on the lower left position is ‘Christ Mocked.’
French want to hold for 30 months
After the auction in October 2019, this legendary work is prepared to deliver to the bidder, believed to be Chilean collector in the US who specializes in collecting Italian medieval art pieces. However, two months later, in late December, the French Ministry of Culture announced that it will hold the image to stay in the country for 30 months for raising funds to acquire this art as a national treasure and plan to exhibit side by side with Cimabue’s “Maestà” at the Louvre Museum
We haven’t known yet where this painting will finally land. But at least, the world discovered a lost art from medieval times.
Source
- https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/france-blocks-export-cimabue-christ-mocked-1202673798
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50901497
