Baroque master Peter Paul Rubens’ long-lost painting “Crucifixion of Jesus Christ”, which was hidden for more than four centuries, is on display at the auction house Occitanie in Versailles, west of Paris, on November 30, 2025.
Michelle Euler/AP
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Michelle Euler/AP
Paris – For more than four centuries, people believed it had disappeared.
But after being discovered in a Paris townhouse, a painting by 17th-century Baroque master Peter Paul Rubens sold for 2.3 million euros ($2.7 million) at Versailles’ Ocenot auction house on Sunday.
painting, title christ on the crossCompleted in 1613 but soon disappeared from public view. For centuries, its existence was known only through engravings and printed reproductions by other artists. Its whereabouts remained a mystery until auctioneer Jean-Pierre Ossenat uncovered it in September 2024 during a routine inspection of a Paris house he was preparing to sell.
“It’s a masterpiece,” Osénat told French wire agency AFP shortly after the discovery, adding that the artwork was “in very good condition.”
Still, Osennet was skeptical that what he found was so uniquely valuable. It was initially believed that the piece was produced in one of Rubens’s many workshops. The painter established a large studio where he collaborated on pieces with a team of assistants.
Yet Osenat says he had an idea that perhaps the piece was not like all the other pieces.
“I did everything possible to try and authenticate it,” Osenat told The Associated Press.
So he brought it to the Centrum Rubensianum, the official Rubens committee in Antwerp, Belgium. After scientific analysis, the authenticity of the painting was confirmed by the German art historian and Rubens expert, Nils Büttner. He mentioned the call to Oceanat in an interview with AFP.
“Jean-Pierre, we have a new Rubens!” Buttner told Oceanat, according to AFP.
Büttner said authentication analysis included microscopic examination of the paint layers, which revealed blue and green colors consistent with Rubens’ treatment of human skin.
According to the Associated Press, the last known owner of the painting was the 19th-century French classic painter William Bouguereau, who died in his family.
Rubens, born in 1577, is known as a master of the Flemish Baroque tradition, a style popularized in the 16th and 17th centuries, known for its use of dramatic lighting, vivid realism, and minute detail.
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