The Jacquemart-André Museum is hosting the first major Parisian retrospective of Georges de La Tour since the Grand Palais exhibition in 1997, offering new insights into the mysterious French master of chiaroscuro painting. The exhibition explores the remarkable journey of an artist who achieved glory under King Louis XIII, fell into complete obscurity after his death in 1652, and experienced a brilliant rediscovery in the 20th century.

The story of La Tour's career reads like a fascinating detective novel in art history. In 1640, he held the prestigious title of "painter to the king" and was beloved by Louis XIII. Yet by 1900, he had become nothing more than a forgotten ghost – not even a name or signature remained in public memory. As co-curator Gail Feigenbaum, who organized the exhibition alongside conservator Pierre Curie, explains, "The rediscovery of Georges de La Tour is a detective story, one of the most important in art history."

Despite numerous gaps in knowledge about his life and work, one thing is now certain: La Tour was far from the isolated provincial artist many once imagined. As Jean-Pierre Cuzin, author of a monograph on the painter published by Citadelles & Mazenod, summarizes: "He was not this small, isolated artist painting candlelit scenes in the depths of Lorraine." This makes his complete disappearance from memory after his death all the more remarkable and puzzling.

The fascinating story of La Tour's rediscovery began in the late 19th century with the initial intuitions of Alexandre Joly, a curator from Lorraine at the Lunéville Museum, who reconstructed the first fragments of the artist's career. The breakthrough came through art historian Hermann Voss, who in 1915, while directing the Berlin museums, had the inspired idea to connect two nocturnal scenes from the Nantes Museum – "The Denial of Saint Peter" and "The Apparition of the Angel to Saint Joseph" – with another work preserved in Rennes, "The Newborn," suggesting they were all by the same hand.

"The Newborn," painted around 1645 and now housed in the Rennes Museum, stands as one of the three masterpieces that enabled La Tour's rediscovery. This remarkable work demonstrates the artist's ability to create paintings that can be interpreted on multiple levels – either as a secular subject capturing the emotion of birth or as a sacred scene depicting a holy nativity. The painting exemplifies La Tour's mastery of candlelight effects and his profound understanding of human emotion.

"The Denial of Saint Peter," created in 1650, represents another crucial work in the La Tour rediscovery. This nocturnal scene depicts the biblical episode from Christ's Passion, showing the apostle Peter's triple denial after Jesus's arrest. The subject was also famously illustrated by Caravaggio, highlighting La Tour's connection to the broader Caravaggesque movement that swept through European art.

These investigators and art historians who followed La Tour's traces have helped establish him as the master of "night scenes" – nocturnal paintings that today make the heart of every art lover palpitate. His unique ability to capture the interplay of light and shadow, combined with deeply moving human subjects, has secured his place among the great masters of French painting.

The current exhibition at the Jacquemart-André Museum continues this detective work, bringing together scholars and art lovers to explore the many secrets that Georges de La Tour's work still holds, ensuring that this once-forgotten master continues to shine brilliantly for contemporary audiences.