‘NATIONAL TREASURE’

Lost Painting Found in Elderly Woman’s Kitchen Set for Louvre Collection

The $26 million Cimabue masterwork had been hanging above a hot plate used for cooking food.

A lost 13th-century painting recently rediscovered in an elderly woman’s kitchen is set to join the collection of Paris’ Louvre Museum. The 1280 artwork, “Christ Mocked” by Florentine painter Cimabue, was found in the woman’s house in France in 2019. The astonishingly rare painting had been displayed above a hot plate used for cooking food, AFP said at the time, before it was auctioned off for $26.8 million. The French government then blocked the export of the work, designating it “national treasure” status. The 10-inch by 8-inch painting was then kept in the country while the government raised the funds to buy it for the nation. France’s Culture Ministry announced that the painting would go to the Louvre, calling the work “a crucial milestone in art history, marking the fascinating transition from icon to painting.”