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French mechanic finds ‘long-lost Renoir’ online for €700

Lyon resident Ahmed Ziani, who has been buying and selling art after losing his job as a mechanic, may have stumbled across a long-lost masterpiece by French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

French mechanic finds 'long-lost Renoir' online for €700
An art expert examines a different Renoir painting. Photo: Paul J Richards/AFP

Browsing classifieds site Le Bon Coin, Ziani thought he was buying an unsigned piece by 18th-century artist Vernet, and offered €700 for the work.

But once the painting arrived, Ziani's 11-year-old son spotted the almost illegible signature 'A. Renoir' and date of 1864 in the corner of the 96cm by 76cm painting, Le Progres reports.

After reading a Renoir biography, Ziani has identified the piece as Soir d'Eté (or “Summer Night” in English), painted by a 23-year-old Renoir before he had developed his distinctive impressionist style.

Soir d'Eté was exhibited at the Salon de Paris in 1865 along with one other Renoir work, Portrait of William Sisley, which is now owned by the Musee d'Orsay. Since this public display, Soir d'Eté has been listed as a 'missing work' by France's National Art Institute.

A classification number is visible on the back of Ziani's painting, but the National Museums' Archive's records from after 1853 are missing, so it is not possible to see what this number corresponds to.

Ziani has now sent the artwork to a specialist lab in Bordeaux to work out whether it is genuine.

Researchers so far have confirmed that the pigments in the painting are compatible with other Renoir pieces from the period, and the thin canvas and framework are similar to those preferred by the painter, but it could take months for them to come to a judgment as to its authenticity, particularly as there is very little information about Soir d'Eté.

It's been a good year for long-lost art in France. Back in April, a family clearing out the attic of their house in Toulouse to try to fix a leaky roof stumbled across what is thought by many to be a genuine Caravaggio painting. It was classified as a 'National Treasure', which means there is a 30-month ban on it being exported, until experts can determine its authenticity.

If this painting turns out to be authentic, Ziani could be in for a serious payout. Another painting by Renoir, Bal au moulin de la Galette, became one of the most expensive paintings in the world when it was sold for $78 million at Sotheby's in 1990.

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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