Paintings by Antoine Watteau, the French master, have gone on display in France two months after being saved from fires in Los Angeles, reports The Times.
The works, owned by Lionel Sauvage, a Franco-American financier thought to have the world’s biggest private Watteau collection, have been included in an exhibition of the painter at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris. Some have never been seen in public before.
Sauvage, who has five Watteau paintings and 15 or so drawings, told French media outlets that when blazes threatened his home in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades neighbourhood in January, he implemented a fire drill which he had often practised with his gardener. While pumping water on the garden, they took the paintings off the walls and lowered them into the basement using his goods lift.
“In 45 minutes, we had taken down the paintings, put on the pump and installed the hoses,” he said. “We were ready.”
After a 12-hour battle against the flames, he was forced to leave his house, but returned the next day to recover his works.