ART Chagall Sale

The National Gallery of Canada says a plan to sell a Marc Chagall painting “was not made lightly” and would allow it to buy an Old Master painting key to bolstering its collection of French art. (Photo By Русский парижанин, Public Domain)

OTTAWA – The National Gallery of Canada says a plan to sell a Marc Chagall painting “was not made lightly” and would allow it to buy an Old Master painting key to bolstering its collection of French art.

Director and CEO Marc Mayer says the gallery is pursuing Jacques-Louis David’s neoclassical masterpiece, “Saint Jerome Hears the Trumpet of the Last Judgment,” painted in 1779.

The purchase would be funded with proceeds from the sale of “The Eiffel Tower” by Marc Chagall, which is hitting Christie’s auction house in New York on May 15.

That painting, purchased in 1956, is estimated to fetch between US$6 million and US$9 million (C$7.5 million to C$11.3 million).

Mayer says the Chagall ended up on the auction block after more than 150 art museums across Canada were first offered the sale, and failed to respond.

He also says the gallery knows of a foreign museum that was “very interested” in purchasing “Saint Jerome,” spurring it to act.