Battered old painting hanging in pensioner’s kitchen that was going to be thrown in the skip sells for £21million

A NATIONAL treasure has been welcomed into the Louvre after being discovered during a house clearance.

The painting Christ Mocked, by Cimabue, was found in a pensioner’s house in the small French town of Compiegne.

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The elderly lady had kept it in her kitchen, and claimed that she did not know where it came from.

She said that she had thought that the rare painting was just a Greek religious icon.

Measuring just ten inches by four inches, the artwork dates back to 1280.

It would have ended up in a skip but for a chance sighting by an auctioneer during a house clearance.

He suggested taking it to be valued, and experts discovered it was a lost masterpiece – one of only a dozen or so known to exist by the artist.

It then sold for£21 million at auction – over four times its estimate, and a world record for a pre-1500 work.

However, the French government stepped in to block its export, and awarded the painting the status of “national treasure”.

This move kept the artwork on hold…