# The Fortune-Teller > Georges de La Tour - Probably 1630s > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/georges-de-la-tour/georges-de-la-tour-the-fortune-teller/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-08 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Georges de La Tour - **Date:** Probably 1630s - **Medium:** Oil on canvas - **Dimensions:** 101.9 x 123.5 cm (40 1/8 x 48 5/8 in.) - **Object type:** Painting - **Period:** French, seventeenth century - **Current location:** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary Five figures, one dupe, and a picture that has been fought over twice. A rich young man has his palm read by an old woman while three younger ones cut his purse and lift the medal from his chain. It is signed at the upper right with the painter's name and his town, Luneville in Lorraine, and it carries the words AMOR and FIDES on the victim's watch chain.It surfaced in a chateau in the Sarthe after the Second World War, was bought in 1949 by Georges Wildenstein for 7,500,000 francs over the head of the Louvre, and left France for New York in 1960. How it left became a matter for the National Assembly, where Andre Malraux had to account for it; the export licence had been signed by Germain Bazin, the Louvre's own head of old master paintings. Twenty years later Christopher Wright and Diana de Marly declared it a modern forgery in the Connoisseur, CBS put the charge on television, and the Met answered with pigments, x-rays and a French probate inventory of 1879. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **before 1650-1650** Jean-Baptiste de Bretagne, Paris `[disputed]` (ownership) The Met records this link with a question mark. Bretagne's posthumous inventory of 1650 lists at no. 14 a large picture on canvas with a gilt flat frame representing fortune tellers, an original by La Tour, valued at 30 livres. Jacques Thuillier proposed in 1992 that the present work is that picture. The valuation was among the highest in an inventory that contained five La Tours, which is itself evidence about how the painter was regarded in Paris in the year of his death. - **before 1802-1802** The last marquis de Scepeaux, chateau de Moulin Vieux, Asnieres sur Vegre, Sarthe `[disputed]` (ownership) Also carried with a question mark by the Met. In 1802 the entire chateau was sold or given fully furnished to the Lemonnier de Loriere family, and the Met's catalogue entry notes it is possible the La Tour was already in the house when it changed hands. Nothing separates the picture from the furniture in that transaction, which is precisely why the link cannot be graded documented. - **by 1879-1879** Edouard Lemonnier de Loriere, chateau de Moulin Vieux, Asnieres sur Vegre, Sarthe `[documented]` (ownership) His posthumous inventory of 1879 lists a large picture signed G. de La Tour representing the Bonaventure, valued at two hundred and fifty francs. This inventory is the single most consequential document attached to the painting: Pierre Rosenberg produced it in the Burlington Magazine in August 1981 as conclusive proof that the picture is not a modern forgery, on the ground that no nineteenth-century forger would have painted a false La Tour when La Tour had no market and almost no reputation. - **1879-1921** Madame de Gastines, chateau de la Denisiere, near Coulans, Sarthe `[documented]` (inheritance) Daughter of Edouard Lemonnier de Loriere. The picture moves from one Sarthe chateau to another within the family. - **1921-1948** General Jacques de Gastines, La Vagotiere, Degre, Sarthe `[documented]` (inheritance) Her son. Benedict Nicolson wrote to Everett Fahy in May 1971 that he had interviewed Dom de Laborde, a monk of the abbey of Solesmes in the Sarthe, who could account for the painting's whereabouts as far back as the nineteenth century. Solesmes is about twenty kilometres from Asnieres sur Vegre; local memory, in this case, is a provenance instrument. - **1948-1949** The heirs of General de Gastines `[documented]` (sale) Sold to Wildenstein for 7,500,000 francs. The Louvre had opened negotiations to buy the picture after a priest identified it, and was outbid. This is a private treaty sale and no hammer price exists for it. - **1949-1960** Wildenstein, Paris and New York `[documented]` (trade stock) Eleven years in dealer's stock. Charles Sterling noted in 1951 that the owner did not wish the picture to be published just yet, which is a dealer holding a discovery back. Daniel Wildenstein's own memoir with Yves Stavrides, Marchands d'art (Paris, 1999, pp. 152-62), sets out the politics behind the purchase, the sale, the export and what he calls the defamation of the picture. - **1960-present** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (acquisition) Rogers Fund, accession 60.30. The price has not been published; contemporary reporting described a very high sum. Art News announced it in the summer of 1960 under the headline Spectacular Buy for the Metropolitan, and Weltkunst reported a storm of indignation over the acquisition in July of the same year. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **** , - This painting has never been sold at public auction. Every figure attached to it comes from an inventory or a private treaty sale, and none of them is a hammer price. The recorded numbers are: 30 livres, the valuation in Jean-Baptiste de Bretagne's posthumous inventory of 1650; 250 francs, the valuation in Edouard Lemonnier de Loriere's posthumous inventory of 1879; 7,500,000 francs, the price paid by Georges Wildenstein to the de Gastines heirs in 1949, which outbid the Louvre; and an undisclosed sum paid by the Metropolitan Museum in 1960. Because there is no auction there is also no premium question, and any database entry offering a hammer figure for this picture is reporting something that never happened. ## Open questions - What did the Metropolitan Museum pay Wildenstein in 1960? The figure has never been published and contemporary reports say only that it was very high. - Is the Met picture the fortune tellers listed at no. 14 in Jean-Baptiste de Bretagne's posthumous inventory of 1650? Thuillier proposed it in 1992 and the Met carries the link with a question mark. - How did the painting reach the chateau de Moulin Vieux, and was it there before 1802 when the house was transferred fully furnished to the Lemonnier de Loriere family? - How much canvas was lost from the left edge, and does the original format resolve the pendant question with either of the two Cheats? - Was the MERDE graffito removed, and when? De Montebello described it in 1982 as a restorer's mischief over original brushstrokes, but the sources consulted do not record what was done about it. - Why did Germain Bazin, the Louvre's own head of old master paintings, sign the export licence? Wright's suggestion that he doubted the picture is a speculation and remains unproved. - Does a record survive of the priest's identification and the prisoner of war's recognition, or is the discovery story oral tradition repeated in the literature? ## Sources - [1] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, object record 436838, Georges de La Tour, The Fortune-Teller, accession 60.30. Consulted for the tombstone, the signature and inscriptions, the catalogue entry by Xavier F. Salomon revised by David Pullins, the full provenance, the exhibition history and the bibliography, which supplies Bloch 1950, Sterling 1951, Pariset 1961, de Marly 1970, King 1970, Mellencamp 1971, Nicolson 1971, Nicolson and Wright 1974, Wright and de Marly 1980, Pope-Hennessy 1980, Brealey and Meyers 1981, Rosenberg 1981, Sewell 1981, de Montebello 1982, Spear 1982, Blunt 1982, Prohaska 1987, Thuillier 1992 and Wildenstein and Stavrides 1999. - [2] The Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access API, object 436838. Consulted for isPublicDomain, primaryImage, medium, dimensions, accession number and credit line. - [3] Wikipedia, 'The Fortune Teller (La Tour)'. Tertiary. Used for the prisoner-of-war discovery account, the 1949 Wildenstein purchase at 7,500,000 francs over the Louvre, the undisclosed 1960 Met price, and the export controversy including Andre Malraux at the National Assembly and Germain Bazin's signature on the export licence. Replace with Wildenstein and Stavrides, Marchands d'art (Paris, 1999), pp. 152-62, and with the French parliamentary record. - [4] Wikipedia, 'Georges de La Tour'. Tertiary. Used for the birth and death dates and places, the Luneville studio from 1620, the title of painter to the king in 1638, the ducal employment of 1623-24, Hermann Voss's rediscovery in 1915 and the pupil son Etienne. Replace with Thuillier's monograph and the 1997 Grand Palais catalogue. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.