Allegory of Fortune

Artist
Dosso Dossi
Year
c. 1530
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
181.3 × 194.9 cm

Found at a flea market and purchased for a modest sum, this seven-foot canvas was strapped to the roof of a car and brought to Christie’s in New York, where experts recognised it as a long-lost allegorical scene by the Ferrarese master Dosso Dossi. The meaning of the figure of Fortune, who turns her back on the world while dispensing her gifts blindly, has never been settled, but the message seems to be that prosperity in life is transitory and dependent on luck. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.