A much-loved painting by Renaissance master Titian that was stolen in 1809 and then again in 1995 – it was found in a plastic bag at a London bus stop – is to be auctioned in July.
The Venetian painter is believed to have retired by flight to Egypt in 1508, when he would have been 20 years old. Painted on a 2-foot-wide wooden panel, the painting depicts the Virgin Mary watching Joseph cradle the baby Jesus.
It was first documented in the collection of a Venetian spice merchant in the early 17th centuryTh Throughout the century and subsequent centuries Europe belonged to various nobles, emperors and empresses.
It was bought by the 4th Marquess of Bath at Christie’s in 1878 and is now being sold by the same auction house in London on 2 July on behalf of the last Marquess. It is expected to fetch between £15m and £25m.
The painting has been stolen twice in its history – first in 1809 from the Belvedere Palace in Vienna by Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops and then in the mid-1990s from the marquess’s Longleat House in Wiltshire.
An article about Christie’s website The painting was „praised for its vividly colorful depiction of family affection in the natural world,” and „like its inhabitants, Rest is on a flight to Egypt on a long and eventful journey — a journey far, far away . . .”
Perhaps the most colorful part of the trip was in 1995 when the painting was taken from the first floor drawing room of the Longleat stately home. After seven years of hunting, the painting was valued at more than £5 million at the time. , Charles Hill, former head of Scotland Yard’s art and antiquities division, was found in a plastic shopping bag at a bus stop in Richmond.
Hill, who died in 2021, said he was lured to the location in exchange for £100,000 by a man he described as a cross between Arthur Daly and Lovejoy, the rogue characters from two TV series that ran in the 1980s and 1990s. Reward. Hill is also known for helping to locate Edvard Munch’s 1893 version of The Scream, which was stolen from the National Museum in Oslo in 1994.