Stolen 16th-century painting found at bus stop sells for record $35.9 million

An early Titian masterpiece, once looted by Napoleon’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries, caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective and returned. This week, the oil painting The Rest on the Flight into Egypt sold for more than US$22 million ($35.

9m) at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice . Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as “the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.



” “This result is a tribute to the impeccable provenance and quiet beauty of this sublime early masterpiece by Titian, which is one of the most poetic products of the artist’s youth,” Christie’s UK chairman Orlando Rock said in a statement. The 46cm-by-63cm canvas is believed to have been painted around 1510, the auction house said..