Painting in a damp church is the missing half of a masterpiece
Simon de Bruxelles
"The art historians' hearts sank as soon as they got a proper look at the Van Dyke on the wall of a Wiltshire church. The painting they had travelled hundreds of miles to see was clearly an 18th-century copy.
"Then a much smaller, darker picture caught their eye.
"Holy Trinity, the parish church of Bradford-on-Avon, is now in line for a windfall of hundreds of thousands of pounds after the portrait of Christ was identified as a previously unknown masterpiece by the greatest early 16th-century Flemish artist, Quentin Metsys.
"Metsys's best-known work, The Ugly Duchess, is regularly voted the most popular picture in the National Gallery, but he also produced a series of religious paintings, of which the Bradford Christ has been identified as one of the earliest and finest."
Pour citer cette ressource :
"Painting in a damp church is the missing half of a masterpiece", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), janvier 2010. Consulté le 03/10/2023. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/archives/archives-revue-de-presse/painting-in-a-damp-church-is-the-missing-half-of-a-masterpiece