$25m-$35m Gentileschi
October 21 2015
Picture: Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal reports that Sotheby's New York will offer the above painting by Orazio Gentlieschi for $25m-$25m in the January sale:
Measuring more than 7 feet across, Orazio Gentileschi’s “Danaë” portrays a mythological scene in which the god Jupiter enters the title character’s chamber in the form of a shower of gold.
The painting’s estimated value is $25 million to $35 million, according to Sotheby’s, which plans to offer the work at its Master Paintings evening sale in New York on Jan. 28, 2016.
“It’s the most important Italian baroque painting to come on the market since World War II,” said Otto Naumann, an old masters dealer in New York. “If I had it, I would have offered it at $75 million.”
A friend and contemporary of Caravaggio, Gentileschi began his career in Rome and later moved to England, where he entered the service of Charles I. His daughter, Artemisia Gentileschi, was also a painter whose works have been rediscovered in recent years.
“Danaë” was commissioned by the nobleman Giovanni Antonio Sauli in 1621 for his palazzo in Genoa.
The picture belongs to Richard Feigen - the eminent New York Old Master dealer who, regular readers will know, is given to saying the Old Master market is dying. Au contraire, Richard: if your picture sells - which it should - it'll be another sign that in fact the best Old Master pictures are fetching prices never before achieved.
