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| Stolen Saint John Photo via: Le Figaro |
A 17th century Ethiopian painting stolen from
Paris’ Musée de l’Homme sometimes before 1989 has been withdrawn from an
auction organized by Maison Piasa, the Figaro reports.
The piece, which represents Saint John, was
spotted by academic Jacques Mercier. It had disappeared from the
museum’s collection before its transfer to the newly-built Quai Branly.
Originally exhibited in a church, the painting
was collected in 1932 by the ethnologist Marcel Griaule during the
Dakar-Djibouti mission. Griaule had argued that the decrepit church was
unsuitable to host these precious pictures, and obtained from the local
ecclesiastic authorities the authorization to replace them with oil
copies.
At the time, the Ethiopian foreign affairs minister complained about the pieces’ removal, but the Emperor backed the French.
The work was bought by the wife of the
consignor, painter Joaquin Ferrer, at a flea market in the 1990s. No
further information on the theft has been released at this stage.
The painting will join the eleven other saints still held in the Quai Branly collection.
http://news.artnet.com
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