The painting has been passed down within the family for generations and was renamed “The Guardian Angel of the Family”. The family knew that the canvas was valuable, but did not realize that it was such an exceptional piece, according to auction house Artpaugée. The work was finally estimated in the summer of 2021 as part of an inventory prepared for an insurance company. It was expected that the painting would yield 600,000 to 800,000 euros, but that turned out to be much more.
The painting is said to be part of a reredos, along with a second canvas depicting an angel that was recently acquired by the Louvre in Abu Dhabi. “We do not know where the central painting is located,” it said at the auction house. The auction house does not want to say whether the Abu Dhabi museum has also bought the second painting.
The first trace of the painting in France dates back to 1816, when the two paintings of the angels were separated. Bernhard Strigel was the portrait painter of Emperor Maximilian I.