French State Seizes Historic Saint Denis Windows Right Before Auction

Two days before the sale, the auctioneer received an e-mail requesting their withdrawal on the grounds that they might belong to the State, yet the auction’s organizers had informed the ministry about it six weeks earlier. Bergé chairman Antoine Godeau says they had no time to prepare a response. Whatever the outcome of the ministry’s procedure, the sale was sabotaged. Revelation A stained glass window depicting the Magi is estimated at €200,000/300,000 and another, portraying two monks watching over Saint Benedict’s body, €300,000/400,000. In her message, Isabelle Chave of the Heritage Department, having "taken note of the catalog"—sent four weeks earlier—wrote: "research by French medieval stained glass specialists has led to their identification as coming from two stained glass windows, dated around 1145, in the ambulatory of the basilica of Saint-Denis". What the sale’s expert, Laurence Fligny, had already written in the catalog is thus portrayed as a revelation. The ministry states that their presence in the church "is attested to just before the complete dismantling of the ambulatory’s…