Ahmad 
The painting “A Rest During the Flight to Egypt” by the famous Italian Renaissance painter, Titian Vecellio, achieved a record price at auction, amounting to $22.2 million.
Titian painted the painting in 1512, in which the Virgin Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus appear during their escape from Bethlehem, and it represents one of the important stories in the Christian religion according to the Gospel of Matthew.
Christie’s Auctions announced the sale, noting that the painting was offered for public sale for the first time 150 years ago.
The painting has an interesting story, as it was discovered in 2002 inside a plastic bag at a bus station in London, after it was stolen in 1969 from the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Venice. In 2014, the painting was sold at an auction in London for 17.5 million pounds. Sterling.
The painting is considered one of Titian’s early masterpieces, as he painted it in his early twenties, and it was among the possessions of prominent historical figures such as the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and the Austrian Archduchess of the Habsburg dynasty, in addition to the Queen of Saxony, Maria Theresa of Austria.
Tiziano Vecellio, known as Titan, is considered the leader of the Venetian school of painting. He received the patronage of many well-known Italian nobles and served as court painter to Emperor Charles V for several years.
Titan was distinguished by his exceptional skill in using colors, and his method of using “Titian red” (or Titian red) to paint the hair of people, especially women, is still used to this day.
It is noteworthy that one of his paintings, “The Death of Actaeon,” was sold for more than two million pounds at a London auction in 1971.
Libya: Italian colonization and its aftermath