The Old Master Paintings and Drawings Department is delighted to announce the acquisition of two paintings by Pietro Lorenzetti by the Musée du Louvre. These exceptional 14th-century panels were auctioned by Maison TAJAN on December 13.
Our next prestige sale will take place on June 12. Contact us at [email protected] to include your works!
Pietro Lorenzetti
(Documented in Siena from 1306 to 1345)
Saint Zachary
2 911 500 euros (buyer’s premium included)
Pietro Lorenzetti
(Documented in Siena from 1306 to 1345)
Saint Elizabeth
1 580 500 euros (buyer’s premium included)
These two poplar panels, previously unknown to the public, come from the former Ramé Collection. They were acquired in Paris in 1860 by this eminent high court magistrate with a passion for archaeology and history, whose archives were donated to the Musée Archeologique de Rennes. Kept by his descendants, who had already sold a primitive painting at Tajan in 1985, these two paintings represent a genuine rediscovery by the Cabinet Turquin. These two works by the greatest Sienese painter of his generation were probably part of a large altarpiece made of five or seven panels, which was likely to have been cut apart, as most of them were, having fallen out of fashion in the 18th century and dispersed in the 19th.
Pietro Lorenzetti was an important artist of paintings on a gold background, making his works true pieces of goldsmithery. Only around thirty of his works are known worldwide. The only work in the Louvre’s collections, also painted on a poplar panel, depicting the Adoration of the Magi, was acquired in 1986. Using egg-based paint on a gold background, the colour of eternity, highly elaborate hallmarks and pure colours with no mixing of pigments, the artist had perfect mastery of the technique that has enabled his paintings, painted on poplar wood, to survive the centuries unaltered and to stand alongside contemporary artworks today.
CONTACTS
Thaddée Prate – Director of the Old Master Paintings and Drawings Department
+33 1 53 30 30 47 – [email protected]
Ariane de Miramon – Director of the Communication & Marketing Department
+33 1 53 30 30 68 – [email protected]