12 Rediscovered European Paintings that Achieved Phenomenal Results at Auction

Pascale Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret,  Madone à la treille. Sold for $300,000 at  Sotheby’s New York.

Long thought to be lost, this work had not appeared on the market since 1913. At more than six feet tall, the painting is an important addition to Pascale Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret’s body of work; it demonstrates the artist’s skill as a French Naturalist painter and also foreshadows the later Symbolist movement. Louis Comfort Tiffany even adapted this composition for the design of stained glass windows, two of which still exist today in Maine and Boston, respectively.

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Gustave Moreau, Hélène. Sold for £513,000 at Sotheby’s London.

When the most recent Moreau catalogue raisonné was published in 1998, this painting was recorded as lost. In 2017 it reappeared at Sotheby’s, offered for sale by a French private collector. This watercolour exemplifies an essential feature of the 19th-century femme fatale theme, while also embodying Moreau’s aesthetic preoccupation with line, colour and the human figure.

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Jean-François Millet, Calling Home the Cattle. Sold for $627,000 at Sotheby’s New York.

For 125 years, this work was completely unknown to the art world, including prominent Millet scholars. Until coming to auction in 2017, this charming and atmospheric painting had resided with a single American family. By 1891, it was owned by Francis Bartlett of Boston, who loaned it to the MFA Boston for a period of time. It remained with Bartlett’s descendants until its rediscovery.

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Vilhelm Hammershøi, White Doors Strandgade 30. Sold for £1,448,750 at Sotheby’s London.

Completed in 1899, White Doors was acquired directly from Hammershøi by critic and playwright Axel Otto Henriques around 1900. It was then passed on within the family until it was inherited by Jens Risom, renowned Danish-American furniture designer. In 2017 Risom’s children offered this work for sale, and it became the fifth-highest price for Hammershøi at auction.

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Franz von Stuck, An der Quelle (Lauschende Nymphe). Sold for $200,000 at Sotheby’s New York.

Purchased in 1910 by Baron Bela Rudyansky, a Budapest lawyer, art collector and foreign minister to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this work was passed down through the Baron’s family. When it came to auction in 2016, it was not only an important rediscovery for the artist, but also a newfound and powerful connection between the consignor, who was based in Rhode Island, and his Hungarian family’s history.

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Peder Severin Krøyer, Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer on the Beach at Skagen. Sold for £493,250 at Sotheby’s London.

When first inspected in the home of a British private collector, this work offered many clues that it could be an authentic Krøyer: style and brushstroke; the Danish-style frame; a provenance unbroken since 1905; its listing in a book from 1923 cataloguing all known Krøyers, and labels on the reverse that referred to exhibitions that Krøyer participated in during the early 1900s. Indeed this work turned out to be one of four recorded preparatory oil paintings that relate to Krøyer's iconic, large scale 'blue period' masterpiece, Summer Evening on Skagen's South Beach, now in the Skagens Museum.
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Marie-François Firmin-Girard, Le quai aux fleurs. Sold for $3,021,000 at  Sotheby’s New York. 

For many years, the European Art department recognised this work , thought to be long lost, merely from an old black-and-white photo. After a public auction in 1910, its whereabouts were unknown for more than a century; in 2014, however, the painting serendipitously appeared at Sotheby’s. It had in fact ended up in the collection of Ambassador Charles Whitehouse of Virginia. This outstanding result is still the highest price ever achieved for Firmin-Girard at auction.

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Albert Edelfelt, La laitière. Sold for £353,000 at Sotheby’s London.

Said to be unseen in public since an 1892 exhibition in Helsinki, the present work was known only from a black-and-white photograph taken at that time by Daniel Nyblin – until it came for sale in 2016. Painted in 1889, La laitière is breathtaking in its atmospheric evocation of archipelago life in Haiko during the Nordic summer.

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John William Godward, Julia.  Sold for $1,092,500 at  Sotheby’s New York.

Previously unrecorded before coming to Sotheby’s, Julia is a highly important addition to the oeuvre of Victorian painter John William Godward. Fittingly, the presumed first owner of the present work was Julia Sophia Winkelmeyer Straub, the enterprising daughter of the St Louis brewer Julius Winkelmeyer, and it had been passed down through this family ever since.

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Petrus van Schendel, The Market Place, Rotterdam. Sold for £449,000 at Sotheby’s London.

Not seen on the market for more than 170 years, The Night Market, Rotterdam ranks among Petrus van Schendel's finest compositions ever to appear at auction. Likely the largest market scene painted on panel in the artist’s œuvre, this work fetched what is still the highest price for van Schendel at auction.

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Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Fortune’s Favourite. Sold for $564,500 at  Sotheby’s New York.

Purchased in 1917 by a private collector in Brooklyn as a wedding gift for his daughter, this charming work had remained in the same family for nearly 100 years. Exemplifying Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s fascination with the ancient world and encyclopedic knowledge of Roman architecture and artefacts, it has proven to be a significant rediscovery for this important Victorian painter.

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Federico Zandomeneghi, La Curiosité. Sold for £248,750 at Sotheby’s London.

Blending elements of Impressionism and Pointillism, this exquisite painting exemplifies the artist’s unique painterly technique. An almost identical version was sold at Finarte, Milan on 19 October 1989. However, further research with the Fondazione Enrico Piceni and the Durand-Ruel Archive confirmed the archival photograph published in the artist’s catalogue raisonné illustrated the present work and not the one offered at Finarte.

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