Sacré bleu! One of France’s oldest and extensive public collections—Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans—recently acquired a painting from Kansas City’s own Myers & Monroe Gallery. The French art publication La Tribine de l’Art says this surprising acquisition proves that masterpieces are sometimes still accessible on the market.
The painting—entitled Le Soir—is an 1829 oil on canvas that was exhibited at the 1833 Paris Salon, the greatest art event in the world at the time. The artist, Casimir de Cypierre (1779-1844) is remembered by art historians as one of the greatest collectors to have ever lived.
Cypierre, if you weren’t aware, patronized some of the great artists of the early 19th century, and most of the work he collected can now be found in national museums worldwide. These collected works now hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Louvre, to name a few. He, meanwhile, called himself an “amateur” painter.
Art buff and curator Cole Myers, who owns Myers & Monroe, LLC. in the Crossroads, identified the work in Paris and brought it to Kansas City for his first fine antiques and art exhibition in 2018. The piece ultimately caught the attention of head curator of the Orleans Museum, Olivia Voisin, in Paris the next year. Thanks to her interest, the unusual find was promptly returned home. Turns out, according to Myers, Cypierre’s own works are as rare as the paintings he collected from more famous artists. Mon Dieu!