A stolen 16th-century painting by Venetian master Titian, ‘The Rest on the Flight into Egypt’, has sold for over $22 million at a Christie’s auction, setting a new record for the artist.
The painting, stolen from a British marquess’s home in 1995 and recovered seven years later at a London bus stop, was described by Christie’s as “the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.”
Orlando Rock, chairman of Christie’s UK, praised the painting’s “impeccable provenance and quiet beauty,” noting it as one of Titian’s early masterpieces. The small canvas, believed to have been painted around 1510, depicts a biblical scene of Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt with the baby Jesus.
He said, “This result is a tribute to the impeccable provenance and quiet beauty of this sublime early masterpiece by Titian, which is one of the most poetic products of the artist’s youth,” Orlando Rock, chairman of Christie’s U.K., said in a statement.
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Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as “the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.”
Titian’s work history includes looting by Napoleon’s troops and ownership by various European nobility before being acquired by the 4th Marquess of Bath in 1878. The painting’s dramatic theft and recovery in the 1990s only added to its allure, culminating in this week’s record-breaking sale.
“This picture has captured the imaginations of audiences for more than half a millennia and will no doubt continue to do so,” Rock from the auction house said in a statement after the sale.
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