A Christie’s employee poses with the recently re-discovered lost masterpiece Maddalena Giacente
(Picture: REUTERS)A couple have discovered a sculpture which sat in their garden for 20 years is a long lost £8 million masterpiece.
The pair, thought to be a British couple, bought the sculpture for £5,170 two decades ago but have now discovered the piece was made by renowned Italian artist, Antonio Canova.
The sculpture, named the Recumbent Magdalene, is thought to be one of his last and has now been valued at between £5-8million ahead of its auction at Christie’s in the summer.
Dr Mario Guderzo, a leading Canova scholar and former director of the Museo Gypsotheca Antonio Canova, said the discovery of the piece is an essential part of the history of art.
Dr Guderzo said: “It is a miracle that Antonio Canova’s exceptional, long-lost masterpiece has been found, 200 years after its completion.
“This work has been searched for by scholars for decades, so the discovery is of fundamental importance for the history of collecting and the history of art.”
The sculpture was commissioned by 1819 by then Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool before the artist’s death in 1822.
After Lord Liverpool died in 1828, the former Prime Minister’s estate, including the sculpture, were handed to his brother, Charles and then auctioned by Christie’s in 1852.
The sculpture was then passed to Lord Ward, later the Earl of Dudley, his son, and then carpet manufacturer Sir Herbet Smith in 1920, after which it subsequently was lost.
The British couple who bought the piece in 2002 had it valued by art adviser Francis Outred, whose team uncovered its history.
Donald Johnson, Christie’s international head of sculpture, said the rediscovery was “a highlight within my 30-plus-year career in the field”.
He added: “This sculpture represents an extensively documented commission from a major figure in British history, the prime minister Lord Liverpool, whose purchase of the Magdalene is a testament to the love that British collectors had always show for the work of the great neo-classical sculptor Antonio Canova.”
