Art experts estimated that the artwork was painted between 1615 and 1617.
The painting L’Avocat du village (the Village Lawyer) is one of Brueghel’s largest known works. For decades, it had lived in the house, and was passed down from one generation to the next.
A dusty old painting turned out to be an unknown masterpiece. It’s a rediscovered work of Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Younger that was hidden behind a door for years in a family home. It’s now expected to fetch as much as $850,000 at auction
The family who have had it since the 1900s thought it was fake. “I found this painting in a French house and the painting was behind the door in the television room and I started my estimations in this room and when I turned back I saw this painting. So it was a very good surprise for me. It’s a masterpiece, we don’t have anything else (like it). The big Brueghels around the world, the technique was very qualitative, it needs this estimate because it’s completely unique.”
The painting L’Avocat du village (the Village Lawyer) is one of Brueghel’s largest known works. For decades, it had lived in the house, and was passed down from one generation to the next.
The secret was only uncovered when the family, who wishes to remain unknown, had asked Malo de Lussac of auctioneers Daguerre Val de Loire to estimate the value of their house but instead discovered a masterpiece.
‘I found this painting, behind a door in the television room,’ de Lussac said calling it one of the biggest surprises in his career.
‘And that’s what’s incredible. We are giving them back this authenticity by saying “in fact your artwork is real”.’
Brueghel the Younger, whose father Brueghel the Elder died when he was aged just five, did not use one of his father’s compositions for this painting as he usually did.
Art experts estimated that the artwork was painted between 1615 and 1617.
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