PARIS.- Two paintings by Pietro Lorenzetti, an artist as rare as he was a major figure in the gold-ground painting of the Sienese School of the early 14th century, more than doubled their estimates to fetch €3,034,800* for Saint Sylvester and €1,657,600 for Saint Helena.

Sold separately, they were bought after a long bidding battle by the same buyer, a major American collector of contemporary art who is also a regular client of Tajan.

"We are delighted that these two paintings will be part of the collection of a Tajan client who is known for his taste in contemporary art, and who showed great interest from the moment the sale was announced. He showed great determination right up to the end in the face of market players," explained Thaddée Prate, Director of the Old Master Paintings department, who was delighted with the enthusiasm of the room and the results of the sale.

"We are very satisfied with this result, which far exceeds our estimates. The buyer's personality is interesting, and shows just how much primitive art can appeal to contemporary art collectors" commented Eric Turquin, who appraised the artworks.

These two poplar panels, depicting Saint Sylvester and Saint Helena, immediately recognisable but previously unknown to the public, come from the former Ramé Collection. They were acquired in Paris in 1860 by this eminent high court magistrate with a passion for archaeology and history, whose archives were donated to the Musée Archeologique de Rennes. Kept by his descendants, who had already sold a primitive painting at Tajan in 1985, these two paintings represent a genuine rediscovery by the Cabinet Turquin.

These two works by the greatest Sienese painter of his generation were probably part of a large altarpiece made of five or seven panels, which was likely to have been cut apart, as most of them were, having fallen out of fashion in the 18th century and dispersed in the 19th.

Pietro Lorenzetti was an important creator of paintings on a gold background, making his works true pieces of goldsmithery. Only around thirty works by Pietro Lorenzetti are known worldwide. The only work in the Louvre's collections, also painted on a poplar panel, depicting the Adoration of the Magi, was acquired in 1986. Using egg-based paint on a gold background, the colour of eternity, highly elaborate hallmarks and pure colours with no mixing of pigments, the artist had perfect mastery of the technique that has enabled his paintings, painted on poplar wood, to survive the centuries unaltered and to stand alongside contemporary artworks today.