One of the historic paintings that was discovered during the time of World War II is set to be auctioned.
The soldiers of the Allies’ Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives program, who worked to recover cultural property during World War II, discovered three paintings.
Now, one of the rescued paintings, a portrait of a woman in an opulent gown, is going to auction.
The French artist Nicolas de Largillierre created Portrait de femme à mi-corps while working as a court artist under Louis XIV, who ruled France between 1643 and 1715.
As per several reports, Nazis stole the piece from the bank vault of Baron Philippe de Rothschild in Arcachon, France, in 1940.
This portrait was among the hundreds of thousands of artworks seized by Adolf Hitler’s forces during World War II.
It was first brought to the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris, before being relocated to Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, where it was found by the soldiers of the Allies’ Monuments at the end of the war.
Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas, tells the New York Times, “The Monuments Men photographs taught the world about the Nazi spoliation. This is not the story of a restitution of a work that’s enormously valuable, but it has the depth of the story and the history.”
The auction is scheduled to be held on November 21, and the expected price is estimated to be between $55,000 and $88,000.
