Georges de la Tour - The Fortune Teller

Georges de la Tour was a 17th century painter whose work lived in obscurity until the 1930’s. He reappeared when the Louvre mounted an exhibition of French 17th century painters. Then his work began to sell for millions. This painting was purchased by the Met in 1960 for an undisclosed ,but ”very large sum of money”. The French were outraged, but like several other de la Tours the Louvre may have considered it a fake. Among the evidence is a claim that the word "MERDE" (French for "shit") could be seen in the lace collar of the young woman second from left.  Two members of the Metropolitan curatorial staff accepted that the word was there, regarding it as the work of a recent restorer, and it was then removed in 1982. See the original: https://bit.ly/2GnOXvR

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Georges de la Tour – The Fortune Teller – 1630
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Georges de La Tour - The Cheat

The Cheat - 1650
Musée du Louvre

Also known as The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds. Two versions of the painting circa 1630 and 1635. The version I have placed Santa in is from the Louvre. The other version is in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth Texas. The Texas version is called The Cheat with the Ace of clubs because in the second version he changed the suit of the cheat card from a diamond to a club. This painting is a direct reference to The Cardsharps by Caravaggio (see blog post Dec 7). De La Tour was one of about 50 artists who showed there admiration for Caravaggio by copying this work of art.
In 1934, the Cheat was featured in the memorable exhibition of the Painters of Reality that brought French 17th-century painting back to glory and marked the revival of Georges de La Tour. This sparked a growing craze for the artist and the corpus of his works broadened.

To see the original: http://bit.ly/2gzgcbJ