Lost Guido Reni Masterpiece to Be Auctioned in Paris

A long-lost painting by Guido Reni, 'David Contemplating the Head of Goliath', will be auctioned in Paris on November 25, 2025, with an estimate of €2-4 million. The 17th-century work, missing for nearly 230 years, was rediscovered among descendants of General Pierre-Antoine Dupont de l'Étang, who took it to France during the Napoleonic conquest of Italy. Its provenance includes Francesco I d'Este, Duke of Modena, and Prince Eugene of Savoy, later entering the royal collections of Turin. The auction is a joint effort by French auction houses Artcurial and Millon, in collaboration with Turquin, a renowned art expertise firm. The painting reflects Reni's stylistic shift between classicism and baroque, showing Caravaggesque naturalism in the severed head and chiaroscuro, while maintaining idealist harmony. Its reappearance follows recent exhibitions at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, the Prado in Madrid (2022-2023), and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Orléans (2024) that reexamined Reni's autograph replicas and workshop practices.