“Madonna, you probably don’t know Amiens, but there is a special bond between you and our city.” This is how the video begins in which Brigitte Fouré, the mayoress of Amiens —a city in the north of France with just over 130,000 inhabitants—, has “begged” the American singer to lend her a painting from her personal collection, similar to a work of the City Hall that disappeared during World War I, in a German bombing raid in 1918, for which reason it is considered that it was stolen or destroyed. The objective would be for the inhabitants of the town to be able to admire this work again in 2028, on the occasion of the candidacy of Amiens as European Capital of Culture, a title that this 2023 holds three towns: timisoara (Romania), Veszprém (Hungary) and eleusis (Greece).
“Madonna, I heard that you bought a painting a few years ago, Diana and Endymion, a work by Jérome-Martin Langlois (1779-1838)”, declared the mayoress in a video released on Monday, January 16, on her Facebook page. “It is likely” that this painting “was a work on loan from the Louvre museum to the Amiens Museum of Fine Arts before World War I, and whose trace we lost,” explains the mayoress in that video in French, with English subtitles .
Brigitte Fouré says she is in no way questioning the “legal acquisition” of the painting, which Madonna bought at Sotheby’s auction in 1989 for $1.3 million. In any case, the work could be a copy of the author himself, according to what the Louvre experts ruled at the time, when the table reappeared in public in the eighties, decades after its disappearance. The artist has posed on more than one occasion with the painting; On her social networks, she has been seen photographing herself in her house with her large work hanging next to a staircase.
In the photographs it can be seen that the painting is identical to the missing one, but some measurements made from them would show that it is missing three centimeters in height. In addition, it does not have a Langlois signature either, which the original would have. As explained by the public channel France 3 and as reported by the Efe agency, if the work reached French soil, it could not leave the French country again, since the works that belong to the French State cannot be sold.
What is unknown is whether Madonna actually bought a copy of the painting or if the one that was auctioned in the eighties was really the original (and, given the case, if the singer knows that it is the authentic one). Mayor Fouré assures that although the painting is a copy made by Langlois himself, “it greatly resembles the original” work. “I would like the people of Amiens to be able to see it again,” she explained.
A Sotheby’s spokeswoman has assured the newspaper The New York Times that the painting that was put up for sale in the eighties was a replica, and that the original was destroyed in the German bombing of 1918. The Louvre experts (who know that Madonna has had the work in her possession since then) also arrived to the conclusion that the picture was not the same; in fact, if it had been the real thing, it could not have left France. The spokeswoman did not want to reveal the name of the buyer who bought it almost 35 years ago, but she has assured that the sale took place for much less money than was announced at the time: $440.00. Besides, Diana and Endymion It does not appear in the list of works of art destroyed in the Picardy Museum in that bombing, but it does not appear in the collection of works exhibited in 1911 either. It is unknown if it was in a warehouse, in another place or if, more Later, it was removed from the art gallery to protect it from the ravages of war.
Mon appel à Madonna pour prêter à la ville d’Amiens une œuvre jusqu’alors disparue!
🗣 Mon appel à Madonna pour prêter à la Ville d’Amiens une œuvre jusqu’alors disparue! 🎨 A recent article from the journal Le Figaro nous a permis de découvir que le tableau déposé avant la Grande Guerre au musée des Beaux-Arts d’Amiens, depuis depuis Musée de Picardie, et disparu après un épisode de bombardements pourrait avoir été retrouvé aux États -Unis dans la collection personelle de la célèbre chanteuse Madonna. 🇪🇺 In the cadre of the candidature of notre ville au titre de Capitale européenne de la culture in 2028, j’adresse ce message à Madonna afin qu’elle accepte de nous prêter cette œuvre ! Elle pourrait ainsi, pendant quelques temps, revenir à Amiens et être vue par des milliers d’Amiénois! 👉 Amiénoises, Amiénois, vous avez vous aussi un rôle à jouer: partagez massivement ce message afin qu’il parvienne jusqu’à Madonna! Je compte sur vous!
Posted by Brigitte Foure on Monday, January 16, 2023
Diana and Endymion It was commissioned by King Louis XVIII in 1817, intended for display at the Palace of Versailles; in fact, in the so-called Diana room. Purchased by the French State, it was lent to the city of Amiens in 1872, where it was exhibited at the local Picardy Museum from 1878 and where it remained until World War I. Then it disappeared. In the work, Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt, is seen in the middle of the night lovingly observing the mortal shepherd Endymion, who appears asleep, while an angel stands between the two. Legend has it that Diana fell in love with the beauty of the shepherd, approached, kissed her lightly on her lips… and then Endymion woke up from her and saw her. She fled (she had made an eternal vow of chastity) and he was left thinking it was a dream. Something that happened several nights, until Diana asked her father, Zeus, to put her beloved to sleep. She then she took him to a cave on the sacred mount Latmus and kissed him. According to another version, it was Zeus who granted a wish to Endymion, who asked him to be able to sleep the eternal sleep, which kept him young and immortal forever and, therefore, and without vows of chastity through, he had more than a hundred of children with Diana.
At the moment Madonna has not given explanations in this regard or has responded to the request of the mayoress Fouré. The singer will be in Europe next fall, with a recently announced world tour that will take her to 11 cities on the Old Continent. Perhaps she then she can pay little Amiens a visit.
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