The panel created a profound impression and set a record for the artist at 573,500. Strictly speaking, it is not a discovery - the picture was mentioned in a book in 1857 and appeared at auction in 1913 and 1942. Far more elaborate than the Soreau, it retains a quasi-sculptural quality to its detail in much the same kind of intense light. A sense of mystery is added by the shadow at left where the corner of a structure can be made out. The virtually unknown Mignon ascended to a steep 639,500.
Discoveries continue to be made within the most heavily researched schools.
Topographical landscape painting in 18th-century Italy is one. Christie's had found two unrecorded pictures by Gaspar van Wittel, one showing the Colosseum in Rome and the other the Grand Canal in Venice, dated 1707. There, he produced a first version of the Colosseum in 1697, preceding by seven years the earliest native vedutisti. The Colosseum ended up at 364,500. But this was nothing compared with the surprise created by a view of the Grand Canal held to be a Canaletto by every authority since its brief appearance in 1968.