THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF SAINT-VINCENT AND THE REMBRANDT
A world-famous historic wood-painted collegiate church, worth a visit to learn more about the history of the village and the painting.
This magnificently restored 12th-century collegiate church houses an authentic Rembrandt painting, "Christ on the Cross". This world-famous work on wood, painted in 1631, was acquired in Dunkirk in 1804 by imperial army captain Xavier Duffour, a native of Le Mas-d'Agenais, who donated it to the parish. Owned by the commune since 1906, it wasn't until an analysis by the national museum laboratory in 1959 that Rembrandt's signature was discovered by X-ray under the feet of Christ.
Loaned to the Louvre in 2011 as part of the "Rembrandt et la figure du Christ" exhibition, the masterpiece left Le Mas-d'Agenais once again in 2016 following a crack in the display case that housed it. Exhibited in Bordeaux's Saint-André cathedral, it returned to its beautiful village in the Lot-et-Garonne region in the spring of 2022, much to the delight of its inhabitants. His return was meticulously prepared. A new, perfectly secure place was found for it in the north transept, so that it could be admired up close. Its current display case protects it from variations in humidity and temperature.
Since then, "Christ on the Cross" has seen an influx of visitors, won over by its depiction of Christ in agony, a far cry from the traditional stoic image that artists of the time gave him on the Cross.
Take a tour with Chantal Beaucourt, Raconteuse de Pays, a native of Mas-d'Agenais. She'll tell you all about the history of the village and the painting.
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