Georges de La Tour was probably the most famous French painter during the early 17th century. Louis XIII liked his Saint Sebastian With The Lantern so much that he removed all other paintings from the royal bedroom. But after de La Tour died of the plague in 1652, his work disappeared without trace for the next 263 years. It took a German art historian, Hermann Voss, to resurrect de La Tour in 1915, by identifying The Newborn as the work of the baker's son from Lorraine. Now all but one of the 43 authenticated paintings by Georges de la Tour are on show at the Grand Palais in Paris until January 26th. The missing painting, Saint Jerome Reading, belongs to the Britain's Queen Elizabeth and was judged too fragile to travel. Critics have hailed this first major show of de La Tour's work in France in a quarter of a century as a triumph for art historians.
Perhaps the greatest mystery is how such a remarkable pioneer of realism and the use of light fell into oblivion for nearly three centuries. Because he signed few of his canvases, his works were wrongly attributed to Murillo, Velasquez, the Le Nain brothers and others.
Two explanations have been given for de La Tour's long eclipse. Was it simply the result of a radical change in taste and aesthetic values, as claimed by the sociologist JeanPierre Changeux? Or is Pierre Rosenberg, the director of the Louvre, right in blaming the invasions and wars that ravaged the painter's native Lorraine?
Lorraine in the 17th century was not unlike former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s: mercenaries from Croatia, Sweden, and Switzerland raped, pillaged and massacred their way through the countryside. Written accounts of cannibalism have survived. In 1638, the town of Luneville where de La Tour had settled with his noble-born wife, was burned to the ground. Most of the painter's early works are believed to have perished.
Other mysteries surround the life of de La Tour. We do not know who taught him, or whether he travelled to Italy like most of the painters of the period. He seems to have been influenced by the Italian, Caravaggio (15711610), but he may have studied Caravaggio's works in the Netherlands or in Paris. Some historians see a Dutch, Germanic or even Bohemian influence in paintings such as The Brawl, in which one street musician attacks another with a knife.
Strangely, there is no trace of the rapine and disease of the period in de La Tour's paintings, although his canvases portray a hard world of crooks and thieves, liars and beggars. The most stark representation of poverty is to be found in The Pea Eaters, in which two ragged men, each isolated in his own solitude and hunger, eat from bowls of chick-peas they have received at the door of a hospital or convent.
Even the elegantly dressed courtesan of The Cheater - for which the model was believed to have been de La Tour's wife Diane Le Nerf - connives to deceive a young dandy at cards. Gambling, especially an early version of poker, was a popular pastime in the early 17th century. Two versions of The Cheater - one from the Louvre, the other from the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth Texas, hang side by side at the Grand Palais exhibition. The Louvre's copy had belonged to an antiquarian who found it so ugly he hid it on top of a clothes cupboard.
The Fortune Teller shows the same cynicism about human nature as The Cheater; three women gang up on a naive youth to rob him. This painting's fate also illustrates the passion for de La Tour that has seized collectors and museums in more recent years. Its purchase by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1960 for £33 million caused an uproar in France. Andre Malraux, who was then Minister of Culture, was dragged into parliament to explain how the masterpiece had slipped out of French hands.
De La Tour painted secular and sacred themes, sometimes blurring the distinction between the two by using ordinary characters in Biblical situations. As he grew older, he painted more and more night scenes, where the faces of his subjects - like the magnificent series of repentant Madeleines - are hauntingly lit by candles. His style became simpler and more reflective, and all excess detail was abandoned. The Newborn, de La Tour's best-loved painting, imparts great serenity and tenderness.
Another late masterpiece, Saint John The Baptist In The Desert was discovered only four years ago, after it was estimated to be worth less than £1,000. It was hurriedly withdrawn from auction, and later sold for £1.3 million. Art historians believe de La Tour may have produced as many as 400 paintings. Only 43 have so far been found, 13 in the past 25 years. So if you find a grimy 17thcentury canvas in an attic or a flea market, look closely.