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Important painting found in Minn. church closet

An important 19th century painting has been brought back to public view after languishing for decades, forgotten beneath a pile of reproductions in a church closet. The Rev. Steven Olson of Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Dassel approached the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2007, looking for advice on how to preserve a painting he had found in a janitor's closet.

The museum's experts determined the painting was the long-forgotten "Christus Consolator," which was painted by the Dutch-born, French-trained artist Ary Scheffer, one of the pre-eminent Romantic painters in Paris of the first half of the 19th century.

"Our own version of 'Antiques Roadshow,'" said museum director Kaywin Feldman.

Institute painting curator Patrick Noon called it an "extremely important historical and aesthetic object."
Read entire article at AP