VERSAILLES, France — A long-lost panel by Peter Paul Rubens, hidden for more than four centuries, fetched 2.3 million euros ($2.7 million) at a Versailles auction Sunday. The recently rediscovered work, found in a private Paris townhouse, depicts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The painting had passed through a French collection and for years was labeled as a product of one of Rubens’s workshops, with valuations rarely rising above about 10,000 euros. Auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat said he trusted his instincts about the picture and pushed for formal verification; specialists at the Rubenianum in Antwerp ultimately authenticated the work as by Rubens.
Rubens scholar Nils Büttner noted that while the artist painted many crucifixion scenes, he seldom rendered Christ as a clearly lifeless body on the cross. This panel is unusual in Rubens’s output for showing blood and water flowing from the wound in Christ’s side, a detail Büttner highlighted as distinctive.
The Osenat house cited scientific testing and provenance research in confirming the attribution. Microscopic analysis of paint layers identified the expected whites, blacks and reds used for flesh, but also blue and green pigments—part of a palette Rubens used when rendering skin tones. Art expert Éric Turquin told a packed saleroom that the painting effectively vanished after the early 1600s before resurfacing in the 19th century in the collection of French academic painter William Bouguereau; it then remained in his family until its recent rediscovery.
