John de St Jorre in London
AN oil painting which has been missing for 400 years and is attributed to the Italian old master, Caravaggio, could fetch up to 10-million at an auction in London next month. The picture is the property of a private owner.
The auctioneers, Phillips, originally attributed the picture in their summer catalogue to the “studio of Caravaggio”, with an estimated price of 15 000 to 18 000. But since it was withdrawn from the sale, Maurizio Marini, an Italian art historian, has examined it and told Phillips: “I confirm that this painting is an autograph version by Caravaggio, which would have been executed in Rome around 1593.”
The picture, A Young Boy Peeling an Apple, was due to be sold in Phillips’s summer sale but was withdrawn on the advice of John T Spike, a Caravaggio expert. While other versions of the work exist, they are all widely accepted as copies and the original was, until now, considered irretrievably lost.
The discovery has put Phillips in a quandary over how to price the work. The Getty Museum in the United States recently put a reserve of $15-million on another recent Caravaggio discovery, pending authentication.
A series of technical tests were carried out on the picture by Maurizio Seracini, a Florence-based scientist who specialises in diagnostic tests on old master paintings. He concluded the painting was executed in the17th century; the materials used were typical of the period in which Caravaggio worked; and small but significant adjustments were visible under the surface of the paint (indicating the painting is an original).