Long-Lost Titian Portrait to Be Sold at Auction

LONDON - A portrait that hung quietly in an English country house for decades has been identified as a lost work by Titian and is expected to fetch up to $9 million at auction in London this winter.

The painting, a 16th-century portrait of an unidentified woman, came to light when the owners asked an auction house to value some furniture. A specialist noticed the picture in the background of a snapshot and asked to see it closer.

"It had been hanging there for years," the specialist said. "The family knew it was old. They did not know it was that old — or that good."

Cleaning removed three centuries of varnish and later overpainting to reveal a work experts now date to the 1560s, in the last decades of the Venetian master's life. Its provenance between the 1600s and the 19th century is still being traced.

The attribution was confirmed by a leading Titian scholar, who called the handling of the face — the subtle modeling of skin over bone — unmistakably the master's late manner.

The owners, described by the auction house as a family "not in the art world," have asked to remain anonymous. The proceeds, the specialist allowed, are "life-changing."

Lost Titians surface rarely. A 2002 find — a portrait identified in a regional collection — sold for more than $13 million. The National Gallery in London is understood to be watching the sale closely.

"Attics and dining-room walls keep secrets better than museums do," the specialist said. "Somewhere, hanging over somebody's sideboard, there is always another one."