Earlier this year, a family in northern France called on auctioneer Malo de Lussac to estimate the value of their home. But when the expert arrived, he spotted something potentially even more valuable: a 500-year-old painting by Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel the Younger.
“I arrived in a small television room which was not very well lit. I started making my estimates in the living room and as I turned around behind the door, there were two-thirds of the painting visible,” said de Lussac, who works for the Daguerre Val de Loire auction house in Paris. . Associated press. “And that’s when I discovered painting. It was a bit of a surprise. »
The work, thought to have been painted between 1615 and 1617, came to light at the auction of Daguerre Val de Loire drawings, paintings and autographs in Paris this week. It carried a pre-sale estimate of €600,000 to €800,000 ($650,000 to $866,000).
After a bidding battle, the painting sold €780,000 ($845,000), including fees, to an anonymous Swiss buyer.
Prior to the sale, the painting had been owned by the same family since 1900. As it was passed down from generation to generation, information about the work has been lost.
By the time de Lussac saw the painting, the family – who chose to remain anonymous – had long assumed it was a cheap reproduction of an original. They called him “the Brueghel” jokingly.
Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The village lawyer (circa 1615-1617). Courtesy of Daguerre and Drouot.
“The ancestors of the family purchased the painting as an original, but over the years the true story has been completely lost orally,” the auctioneer said. “Yes, they called him the Brueghel, but they had no idea it was really that!”
De Lussac called the discovery “the greatest moment of my career”, although he tempered expectations as soon as he first laid eyes on the work. “Of course, I was careful. It is after all rather rare to find a Brueghel hanging in a TV room,” he said.
After the expert’s visit, the family sent the canvas to Germany, where experts confirmed that it was a genuine Brueghel.
The painting, titled The Village Lawyer (or The Village Lawyer), depicts a busy scene in an office, where villagers line up to meet with a local lawyer. At 72 inches wide, it is by far the largest of many versions of the same image painted by Brueghel. Another authenticated interpretation of the painting lives in the Louvre collection, for example; it is only 31 inches tall.
Born in Brussels in 1564, Brueghel painted pastoral landscapes and village scenes, as well as reproductions of works by his father, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, widely recognized as one of the most influential artists of the Dutch Renaissance. .
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