Titian Record at Christie's London as Stolen Masterpiece Sells for £17.6M

Christie's London achieved two new auction records during its Old Masters evening sale on July 2, 2024. The Old Masters Part I Evening Sale and the Exceptional Sale together generated £50.8 million. Titian's 'Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for £17.56 million (estimate: £15 million), setting a new auction record for the artist and surpassing the previous record of $16.9 million set at Sotheby's New York in 2011. The painting, one of the last religious works by Titian in private hands, was looted by French troops in the early 19th century for the Musée Napoléon and later stolen again in 1995 from the collection of the Marquess of Bath, John Alexander Thynne. It was recovered seven years later, hidden without a frame in a bag at a London bus stop. Additionally, Quentin Metsys' 'Madonna of the Cherries' sold for £10.7 million to the J. Paul Getty Museum, setting a new record for the Flemish artist and far exceeding the previous record of under $2 million set at Lempertz in 2020. The Getty already owns another Metsys, 'Christ as the Man of Sorrows'. In the Exceptional Sale, highlights included a late 18th-century musical table clock from Guangzhou, China, sold for £756,000, and a Greek bronze head of Eros (1st-2nd century BC) that achieved £1.855 million, tripling its low estimate of £550,000. The sales confirm renewed vitality in the Old Masters market, following Chardin's record of €26.7 million in Paris weeks earlier.