Longleat: Titian painting found in plastic bag sells for £17.5m

A painting described as a masterpiece that was found in a plastic bag after it was stolen has sold at auction for £17.6m.

Rest On The Flight Into Egypt, painted by Venetian master Titian when he was just 20 years old in 1510, has been sold by London auction house Christie’s.

The work was stolen from the drawing room of the Longleat stately home in Wiltshire in 1995, but was found seven years later unframed in a plastic bag in London.

Its sale sets a new world auction record for the artist, the auctioneers said.

Lord Bath, who succeeded his father as Marquess of Bath in 2020 by inheriting the Longleat estate, said the painting had an “extraordinary history”.

Speaking ahead of the sale, he said: “We have a substantial long-term investment strategy at Longleat and have decided to sell this asset to further this agenda at a time when the market for paintings of such unique rarity is so strong “.

The image, which depicts Mary cradling Jesus while looking at Joseph, is 2 feet (60 cm) wide and is painted on a wooden panel.

It had many owners over the years, including Austrian Emperor Joseph II, before it was hanged at Vienna’s Belvedere Palace.

French troops looted the painting in 1809 for the Napoleon Museum, which was assembled by the Bonaparte family.

It was later owned by a Scottish owner before being bought by the 4th Marquess of Bath in 1878 at a Christie’s auction.

After being stolen in 1995, it was recovered in 2002 by ex-Scotland Yard detective Charles Hill after a £100,000 reward was offered for information.

Speaking ahead of the auction, Andrew Fletcher, global head of Christie’s Old Masters Department, said it was the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market “in more than a generation”.

He added that the image is “a truly outstanding example of the artist’s pioneering approach to both the use of color and the representation of the human form in the natural world”.

He said the piece secured Titian’s status as “one of the greatest painters in the history of Western art”.

The painting had an auction estimate of £15-20 million.