The painting, titled Christ on the Cross, was completed in 1613 but soon vanished from public view. For centuries, its existence was known only through engravings, printed reproductions made by other artists. Its whereabouts remained a mystery until the auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat uncovered it in September 2024 during a routine inspection of a Paris home he was preparing to sell.
Madam Kitty's opulent salon, located in an upscale Berlin neighbourhood, was a den of espionage wired by the Nazis to spy on prominent visitors. "Between 1939 and 1942, diplomats, foreign journalists and even high-ranking Nazi officials were spied on without their knowledge," Urs Brunner, the new owner of the painting, told AFP. A woman who bought the painting on the cheap at a Berlin junk shop in 1999 recently contacted Brunner and fellow author Julia Schrammel.
