A family auctioned a painting by Bernhard Strigel for almost 3 million euros while it was stored in a bedroom, and no one suspected its true value.
A painting representing an angel, painted in 1520, was sold for 2.8 million euros at an auction on Friday in Toulouse, by a family who did not imagine having such a valuable work.
The work of the German painter Bernhard Strigel (1460-1528) was in a pile of paintings, stored on a bed in a bedroom in a Toulouse apartment, explains Pauline Maringe, auctioneer of the Artpaugée auction house. Following an inventory for an insurance company during the summer of 2021, the owners of the work requested an estimate.
“When I saw this painting, it was in an exceptional state of preservation for a painting that has survived five centuries. We entrusted it to our expert, who authenticated it”, continues Pauline Maringe. At first she thought it was a copy.
“The guardian angel of the family”
“The buyer did not wish to reveal his identity, it was an institution that merely said the auctioneer. It could be the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi, which recently bought its counterpart. “The two angels are, it seems, the pieces of an altarpiece. We do not know where the central part is”
The transaction amount for The Thuriferous Angel dressed in a yellow tunic far exceeded the estimate, from 600 to 800,000 euros.
In this family of the Toulouse bourgeoisie, the painting was transmitted from generation to generation and had been baptized “The protective angel of the family”. They knew it was a valuable painting without suspecting that it was an exceptional work. The first trace of the work in France dates back to 1816, when the two paintings were separated. Bernhard Strigel was the portrait painter of Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519).