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Lost Peter Paul Rubens Painting Will Go To Auction at Sotheby’s with $7.7 M. Estimate
ARTnews ^ | June 20, 2023 | Shanti Escalante-De Mattei

Posted on 06/20/2023 3:50:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway

The painting Saint Sebastian Tended By Two Angels by Flemish master Sir Peter Paul Rubens will go to auction at Sotheby’s in London in early July with a high estimate of $7.7 million, according to the auction house.

The sale will be the first time the painting has gone to auction since it was confirmed to have been painted by Rubens. When the work was last sold at auction in 2008 — at Ivey-Selkirk, a St. Louis auction house, for $40,000 — it was misattributed as the work of French artist Laurent de la Hyre, according to Artnet News. That auction brought considerable attention to the mysterious painting and, soon after, scholars identified it as a lost Rubens.

For centuries, the painting was thought to have been a copy of Rubens’ Saint Sebastian Tended By Angels, which hangs in the Galleria Corsini in Rome. However, once the attribution was corrected, the two paintings were placed side-by-side in a 2021 exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany, whereupon scholars judged that the once-misidentified painting was actually the original, and the Corsini painting a copy.

In Sotheby’s writing about the artwork, the auction house quoted art historian and Flemish art expert Anna Orlando who helped establish provenance for the piece. She wrote, “The very useful direct comparison [between the two] on the occasion of the exhibition in Stuttgart in 2021 would seem to reveal the higher quality of the work in private hands.” An analysis using x-rays later confirmed the opinion of the scholars.

Scholars believe the painting was originally commissioned by the Genoese nobleman and military commander Ambrogio Spinola, whose family is one of the primary dynasties of the Republic of Genoa. After the painting was made in the late 1600s, it remained in the family for some time. But, eventually, it passed to a Spinola heir who had four sons, two of which died and the other two of which were childless. The painting then began to be passed down the female line of descent, making it impossible to track the painting through the Spinola name thereafter. There is a gap of 230 years that scholars have struggled to fill.

The painting resurfaced in Missouri in 1963 and then appeared for the first time at auction in 2008.


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: donateforjim; godsgravesglyphs; painting; peterpaulrubens; rubens; saintsebastian; sirpeterpaulrubens

1 posted on 06/20/2023 3:50:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: All

Pee Wee Herman is a painter? Who knew?


2 posted on 06/20/2023 4:05:26 PM PDT by BipolarBob (I was going to start procrastinating this year, I just haven't got around to it.)
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To: nickcarraway
more art from famous painter:

Titian's Venus of Urbino

Edouard Manet's Olympia


3 posted on 06/20/2023 4:08:14 PM PDT by entropy12 (Career politicians like DeSantis are there to build wealth, Trump is there to serve & lose wealth)
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To: entropy12

How long before they cancel the painting with the black lady waiting on the white lady?!


4 posted on 06/20/2023 4:37:56 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: No name given

New York minute?


5 posted on 06/20/2023 4:56:49 PM PDT by entropy12 (Career politicians like DeSantis are there to build wealth, Trump is there to serve & lose wealth)
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To: No name given

I guess the politically correct crowd wants to erase history.


6 posted on 06/20/2023 5:02:57 PM PDT by entropy12 (Career politicians like DeSantis are there to build wealth, Trump is there to serve & lose wealth)
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To: entropy12

Best Reuben
Blnk
7 posted on 06/20/2023 5:22:00 PM PDT by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: nickcarraway; mairdie
How do they sell it if it's lost? /rimshot

8 posted on 06/20/2023 5:37:33 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (NeverTrumpers are Republicans the same way Liz Cheney is a Republican.)
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To: minnesota_bound

HAHA YES it looks very good, but my jaw can not open that wide.


9 posted on 06/20/2023 5:49:57 PM PDT by entropy12 (Career politicians like DeSantis are there to build wealth, Trump is there to serve & lose wealth)
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To: entropy12

then you need the squishinator 4000- created by Dr Duffenschmurtz from finius and ferb


10 posted on 06/20/2023 8:18:26 PM PDT by Bob434 (question )
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