Art enthusiast discovers missing painting from Notre-Dame 200 years ago in a church near Lyon

A painting of Notre-Dame of Paris, believed to have been missing for two hundred years, has been found in a church in Givors, a French municipality located near Lyon. The discovery was made by an art history enthusiast, Benoît Faure-Jarrosson, a member of the Societé d’Histoire de Lyon, who recently unearthed in the church of Saint-Nicolas a work that until the early 19th century was located in the famous Parisian cathedral.

It is anAdoration of the Magi, a monumental work that had been donated by the Goldsmiths’ Guild of Paris to the cathedral on the occasion of May 1. In fact, every year the guild donated a monumental work to Notre-Dame, and from this fact these works were called “maggi.” During the French Revolution the painting, like all Church property, was later seized and dispersed: it therefore disappeared from Notre-Dame in 1810.

Benoît Faure-Jarrosson noticed two mysterious inscriptions at the bottom of the painting (A. Lagneau and A. Magimel) and by doing research in the national archives discovered that these two names did not refer to two painters, but to two members of the Goldsmiths’ Guild. In fact, he found a contract signed by Antoine Lagneau and Antoine Magimel that makes known their membership in the Goldsmiths’ Guild of Paris; it also says here that the latter donated a painting by Joseph Vivien (1657-1734) to Notre-Dame Cathedral, as was the tradition. TheAdoration of the Magi was thus made in 1697 by Vivien, an artist who used to paint portraits, but who in this case decided to depict a sacred theme.

The last certain temporal reference is that the painting appears in an art dealer’s catalog in 1810. How it came to the church of Saint-Nicolas in Givors is not known for certain. Research into the history of this painting will continue, but first it will undergo restoration and then be displayed in the church again.

Ph.Credit Jacques Del Pino

Art enthusiast discovers missing painting from Notre-Dame 200 years ago in a church near Lyon

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