The painting has been authenticated by German art historian Nils Buttner, known for his research on the master of the Flemish Baroque, Osenat said.<\/p>\n
Its provenance was certified through methods including X-ray imaging and pigment analysis, he added.<\/p>\n
Osenat remembered pacing back and forth while a committee of experts was deciding on the authenticity of the painting. Then came a phone call from Buttner. <\/p>\n
\u201cJean-Pierre, we have a new Rubens!\u201d he said Buttner had told him.<\/p>\n
The auctioneer called the painting \u201ca true profession of faith and a favourite subject for Rubens, a protestant who converted to Catholicism\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the very beginning of Baroque painting, depicting a crucified Christ, isolated, luminous and standing out vividly against a dark and threatening sky,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Although Rubens produced many works for the Church, the newly discovered painting, measuring 105.5 by 72.5cm (42 by 29 inches), is likely to have been created for a private collector.<\/p>\n
It is thought to have belonged to the 19th-century French academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau and later to the owners of the Parisian mansion where it was found.<\/p>\n
The painting is set to be auctioned off on November 30.<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The painting has been authenticated by German art historian Nils Buttner, known for his research on the master…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[17355,17359,1558,17352,17353,14647,156,17356,1874,11775,1345,78,17354,5836,17358,7124,111,139,69,1118,90,3074,6943,17357,5413,17351,3048,223,1865],"class_list":["post-15129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-17thcentury","tag-auctioneer","tag-been","tag-christ","tag-cross","tag-discovered","tag-entertainment","tag-flemish","tag-found","tag-french","tag-home","tag-in","tag-longlost","tag-lost","tag-mansion","tag-master","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-painting","tag-paris","tag-paul","tag-peter","tag-rubens","tag-said","tag-the","tag-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}