Category: Auctions
George Washington's pastel makes $317,500
January 9 2025
Picture: maineantiquedigest.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm very late to this rather fascinating story (spotted via @MaryMWalsh) that a unattributed pastel of St John the Evangelist realised $317,500 at the The Potomack Company auctioneers in Alexandria, Virginia, last October. This enormous sum is explained by the fact that the artwork had documented provenance back to its original owners George and Martha Washington and had descended with members of the family. Even if we forget that the estimate was $250,000 - $500,000, this is still quite a price! Click on the link to read more.
Sotheby's New York Master Paintings Part I
January 8 2025
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Sotheby's New York Master Paintings Part I sale has been uploaded online. The auction will take place on 6th February 2025 at 10.00 EST.
Amongst the top lots are a Rubens sketch of the Annunciation at $4m - $6m, a hairy Saint Mary Magdalene by Raphael at $2m - $3m, a portrait of a noblewoman by Bernardino de Conte at $2m - $3m, a Nest Robber by Pieter Brueghel the Younger at $1.2m - $1.8m, and a crucifixion by Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen at $1.2m - $1.8m. Being musically minded though, my favourite is this Cornelis de Vos portrait showing a young girl playing the virginal, estimated at $600k - $800k (pictured).
It is also worth drawing attention to the Aso O. Tavitian single-owner sales, which contain a selection of fine selection of Old Masters from various centuries and national schools, the top lots being a portrait of Margaret of Austria at $1.5m - $2m and a Mary Magdalene by Ambrosius Benson at $600k - $800k.
Sotheby's New York Drawings Online
January 3 2025
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Whilst we're waiting for the upcoming Sotheby's New York Old Master Paintings sales to be published, here's the upcoming Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries auction. The sale will take place on 5th February 2025 at 11.00 EST.
Top lots include this fine study of heads by an artist in the Circle of Gerard David (pictured), a marine drawing by Caspar David Friedrich, a Swiss watercolour by JMW Turner and a mythological drawing by Claude Lorrain.
Christie's New York Part II Sale
December 21 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The upcoming Christie's New York Old Master Paintings & Sculpture: Part II sale has been published online. The auction will take place on 5th February at 2pm EST (straight after their Part I sale, it seems).
As usual, I won't spoil the fun by pointing out any paintings which may or may not be interesting.
Kauffman soars in Paris
December 21 2024
Picture: Theirry de Maigret
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Paris (via. Drouot) that the following Portrait of Elisabeth Vernon, Countess Harcourt by Angelika Kauffman soared to an impressive 244,720 EUR over its modest 12,000 - 15,000 EUR estimate earlier this week at Theirry de Maigret.
Christie's New York Sale
December 21 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Christie's New York have uploaded their upcoming Old Masters sale online. The auction will take place on 5th February at 10am EST.
Amongst the top lots are the aforementioned El Greco of Saint Sebastian estimated at $7m - $9m. The painting already has a third-party guarantee, meaning the work is technically already sold. Other notable works are a fine Pieter de Hooch interior at $2.5m - $3.5m, a portrait of a gentleman, possibly Dirck Dircksz Tjarck, by Frans Hals at $2m - $3m, and a Cranach the Elder of Hercules and Omphale at $1m - $2m. My favourite picture of the bunch is this musical Michael Sweerts, an artist who appears in most evening sales these days, which carries an estimate of $700k - $1m. There are also a selection of paintings being sold by the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (to fund future acquisitions), more of which can be read in this article.
Holkham Attic Sale at Sworders
December 21 2024
Picture: Sworders
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Exciting news that Holkham Hall, the ancestral home of the Earls of Leicester and one of the greatest country houses in England, are holding an Attic Sale at the auction house Sworders in February. There aren't that many pictures included in the sale, but, it's a rare opportunity to purchase some odds and ends of furniture, fixtures, fittings and decorative features from one of the finest stately homes ever erected.
Prado acquires Pedro Machuca from Christie's Sale
December 12 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Spain that the Prado in Madrid have acquired Pedro Machuca's Baptism of Christ from the recent Christie's London Old Masters Part II sale. The painting had sold for £63,000 over its £25k - £35 estimate. It had previously come up at Sotheby's in 2023 but failed to find a winning bid.
Day Sale Surprises
December 6 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
There were some rather strong results in both the Christie's and Sotheby's Old Masters Day sales in London during the second half of this week.
Amongst the pictures that soared was this 'Follower of Holbein - Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger' (pictured above), a painting which had formerly been in the collection of Charles I, which realised £327,600 (all prices inc. premiums) over its £40k - £60k estimate. The catalogue note, which goes into the question of dating and provenance, is worth reading. Another strong price was achieved by Pietro Antonio Rotari's The Meeting of Alexander the Great and Roxana, behind a trompe l'oeil curtain which made £189,000 over its £50k - £80k estimate and Alessandro Turchi's The Abduction of Helen which realised £126,000 over its £60k - £80k estimate.
At the Sotheby's sale, where there were also quite a few strong prices which soared past their top estimates, it was a nineteenth century painting by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer which claimed the top spot of £1,020,000 over its £200k - £300k estimate. Other surprises were a pair of scenes ascribed to the Circle of Carlo Maratta which made £144,000 over their £15k - £20k estimates and a A fowl piece with Alexander Pope’s villa at Twickenham by Pieter Casteels III which achieved £180,000 over its £26k - £36k estimate.
Rediscovered Ter Brugghen Soars
December 6 2024
Picture: Ivoire
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A rediscovered painting of Esau selling his birthright by Hendrick Ter Brugghen made 1,150,000 EUR over its 200k - 300k EUR estimate at the auction house Ivoire in France yesterday. The work, dated to roughly 1627, was last at auction back in 1918 (according to the catalogue note provided by the auction house).
Sotheby's London Evening Sale
December 4 2024
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Sotheby's London Evening Sale realised a total of £24,164,000 (with commission) with a sell-through rate of 76.93% / 73.08% including withdrawn lots.*
The Italian pictures, heavily featured within the auction, did rather well at the high end of things. The top lot was Botticelli's Madonna and Child Enthroned which had at least 4 or 5 frantic bidders to eventually reach an impressive £8.6m (hammer) over its £2m - £3m estimate. This is £9,960,000 including commission. Catherine the Great's Rosso Fiorentino made £2.8m (inc. commission) over its £2m - £3m estimate, although Artemisia's Magdalene came in at well below its low estimate. There were also strong results for paintings by Rubens, Antonio Joli and Pieter Claiessens the Elder.
The crescendo of the sale was Gustav and Ernst Klimt's Hanswurst Delivering an Impromptu Performance in Rothenburg which reached £2,220,000 over its £300k - £500k estimate, a phenomenal work which as one of my old friends remarked felt more like a collage of photographs rather than a painting, due to the almost photorealistic quality of the various faces encountered in the scene.
* - 1 lot was withdrawn.
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Zoffanys soar at Bonhams
December 4 2024
Picture: Bonhams
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The aforementioned pair of Johann Zoffanys soared past their £300k - £500k estimate at Bonhams today to realise £991,000 (including premium). They did look absolutely fantastic in the preview of the sale earlier this week and will undoubtedly clean beautifully once careful conservation reveals their original colours underneath that yellowed varnish. We shall wait and see if they turn up anywhere interesting!
Louvre buys Tiepolo from Christie's London Sale
December 4 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Louvre in Paris has announced its acquisition of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's Guilty Punchinello from last night's sale at Christie's London. The picture, which had been in France since c. 1934, made £2,460,000 over its £1m - £1.5m estimate.
Christie's London Part I Sale
December 3 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Christie's London Old Masters Part I sale realised a total of £13,990,220 (inc. premiums) this evening with a respectable 88.47% of lots sold / 76.93% if one includes withdrawn lots.*
Several pictures managed to soar past their top estimates, including a Clara Peeters Still Life with Cheese which realised £655,200 (all figures inc. premiums) over its £100k - £150k estimate, alongside two nineteenth century pictures. Gustav Courbet's Le poète ou Le sculpteur realised £945,000 over its £250k - £350k estimate and Francesco Hayez's Bathsheba made £1,492,000 over its £600k - £800k estimate. With premiums added, many pictures managed to break past their upper guide prices, including the top ticket works Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Gabriel Metsu.
The top lot went to Van Dyck's much anticipated Andalusian Horse, which fetched a hammer price of its high estimate to realise £3,428,000 including premiums added.
All eyes on the Sotheby's sale tomorrow evening!
* - 3 lots were withdrawn, I'm sure someone will get in touch if I was incorrect with this figure!
New York pictures in London
December 2 2024
Picture: Sotheby's via AB
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
One of the joys of the December Old Master Paintings auctions are the 'highlights' of the upcoming January / February 2025 season in New York. This year does not disappoint.
Sotheby's New York have some rather choice pictures on display, including a Rubens sketch of the Annunciation at $4m - $6m, this surprisingly modern looking Portrait of a Lady by Bernardino de' Conti at $2.5m - $3.5m (pictured) and a rather hairy small-scale Saint Mary Magdalene by Raphael at $1m - $1.5m.
Christie's have their fair share of masterpieces, including works that are being deaccessioned from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Amongst the works from private collections are a fine interior by Pieter de Hooch at $3m - $5m and a Frans Hals portrait at $2m - $3m. The picture that has captured most of the attention on social media is this very handsome El Greco Saint Sebastian at 'estimate on request' (pictured below). The wall label does not provide a designation for the picture, so, we'll have to keep guessing where it has come from for now.
London Auction Previews open Today - plus Goyen, Goyen, Gone
November 29 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Both the Sotheby's and Christie's Old Master Paintings previews open today in New Bond Street and King Street respectively. The Bonhams preview opens on Sunday. As usual, many hundreds of pictures to admire and peruse including the highlights from the upcoming New York sale season. Keeping an eye on social media, and which pictures people are sharing on their accounts, is usually a good indication of what will do well I find.
In addition to this, Christie's are also previewing a Selling Exhibition amusingly entitled Goyen, Goyen, Gone, featuring nine works by the Dutch landscape painter Jan van Goyen.
Portrait of Rasputin's Murderer Soars
November 27 2024
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A pastel portrait of Prince Felix Yusupov, who is most famous for his hand in the murder of Grigori Rasputin, soared at Sotheby's London yesterday. The portrait was one of three by the Russian female artist Zinaida Evgenievna Serebriakova offered in the recent Fabergé, Imperial & Revolutionary Art sale in New Bond Street. Felix's realised £276,000 (inc. premiums) over its modest £40k - £60k estimate, and his wife Irina Romanova's (niece of Emperor Nicholas II) realised £204,000 over its £50k - £70k estimate.
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As it happens, Felix's life has become of great interest to me in recent years and I would heartily recommend his rather eccentric memoir entitled Lost Splendour to anyone who'd like a colourful account of what it was like to be a Prince in late Imperial Russia. Both his Romanov wife Irina and him managed to escape persecution from the Bolsheviks and eventually settled in between France and England for the remainder of their years. Plagued by debts and depressed jewellery prices (the easiest way Russian emigrees could raise funds in those days) Felix Yusupov eventually had to part with his family's prized Rembrandts (1) (2) to stay afloat, paintings which eventually made their way into the National Gallery of Art in Washington via. the dealer Joseph Wiedner (and eventually resulted in a very messy legal battle). I sometimes daydream of whether the changing attitudes to questions of restitution, evident in many western galleries and museums these days, will ever reconsider the ownership of these two pictures in the future.
The end of art?
November 26 2024
Video: Sotheby's
Posted by Bendor Grosvenor:
What is art? I prefer a broad definition; anything which, via our senses and imaginations, conveys meaning and emotion, but without relying on language. What is art made of? Traditionally we might say mainly painting and sculpture, to judge from the contents of our major art galleries. But probably for most of human existence it consisted of everyday objects which may have been incised or carved, like bones, rock and long-lost bits of wood. Nowadays, pretty much anything counts; Marcel Duchamp’s urinal, Carl Andre’s bricks, Tracey Emin’s bed. And art can be as much an idea – a concept – as an object.
All of which is fine by me. People used to cry, ‘but is it art?’ when confronted by the latest genre-defying work, but we have moved on from that. I’m glad we think about art beyond the gallery. I’m glad too that we have (for the most part) stopped saying, ‘I could have done that!’ when faced with anything unconventional. As Damien Hirst once neatly replied, ‘but you didn’t.’ All creativity requires novelty, and if that involves sawing a cow in half, so be it. It is a Good Thing that over the last century the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of art have become so inclusive, even if the ‘why’ remains challenging, as it should. There can only be good art and bad art.
Or so I thought. Now, having seen the video (above) of Sotheby’s selling Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian for $6.2m, I wonder if we are stretching the boundaries too far. Have we debased art beyond repair, like a dictatorship printing money until it becomes worthless?
Comedian is a banana taped to a wall with gaffer tape. It was first seen at the Art Basel art fair in Miami Beach in 2019, where it immediately attracted worldwide media attention, before selling for $120,000. The buyer obviously didn’t get to keep the actual banana because it rots after a few days (though they did get the gaffer tape). What they really bought was the idea (insofar as it can be bought, Cattelan retains the copyright) and a ‘certificate of authenticity’.
When I first became aware of Comedian in 2019 I thought it was interesting, even if it was easy art for easy money, perfect for the online age and thus validated by the inevitable headlines and clicks. Probably, if a student had tried the same thing at an end of year show they would have scraped a pass. But we know that in the contemporary art world, context of display can be all-important, hence the trend for installations in grand, contrasting settings like historic houses. On the stands of Art Basel Miami, Cattelan’s challenge had a certain cheeky merit. As he explained in The Art Newspaper:
"To me, Comedian was not a joke; it was a sincere commentary and a reflection on what we value. At art fairs, speed and business reign, so I saw it like this: if I had to be at a fair, I could sell a banana like others sell their paintings. I could play within the system, but with my rules."
But Comedian’s afterlife, and especially its sale at Sotheby’s last week for $6.2m, seems to me to negate what Cattelan says. He isn’t playing within the system, or setting any rules. Comedian is instead a product of the system, and - we see now - was created to serve it. It doesn’t break any rules, it obediently follows them.
Let’s leave aside the fact that Comedian is not a particularly original concept (Sotheby’s say it ‘represents the apex of a hundred year-long, intellectual yet irreverent interrogation of contemporary art’s conceptual limits’ which began with Duchamp, but their use of ‘apex’ suggests that even they think it’s time to try something else). What I want to focus on is how Comedian fits into the way the art market - at its extreme end - creates, packages and monetises art. For there is a revealing line in Sotheby’s catalogue entry; ‘this work is number 2 from an edition of 3 plus 2 artist’s proofs’. Comedian was therefore conceived from the outset as a series (whether of three or three hundred is irrelevant) and thus a commodity.
Commodification is one of the cleverer tricks of the mega-money end of the modern art market. We see most clearly how it works in the market for Warhol prints; if a high, benchmark price is set for one Marilyn Monroe print, all other Marilyns become worth a similar amount. Auction has become the best place to establish this benchmark price, because it is set (or gives the appearance of being set) transparently, in real-time and by public acclamation. Consequently, the major auction houses have over the last two decades or so become essential players in creating and sustaining the modern and contemporary art markets. This is the system.
Then we come on to the broader question of how we judge the quality of a work of art, and thus eventually its value. What makes art ‘worth’ something in the first place? Art, being so often intrinsically worth nothing, can be bewilderingly subjective to value. Historians of art will know that our means of judging its value (both financial and cultural) have changed over time. In the 18th century there was a system of gatekeeping by fellow artists, as at the Royal Academy in London, where a select group decided which works were admitted, and which could be hung in the most prized spaces. Later, the voice of the art critic held great sway. Today, the role of the media, both legacy and social, has become more important, in part because attention and profile matter in a busy, globally connected world, but also because we live in an age of brands, the ultimate method of adding value to just about anything. Finally, there is the market, because the question of quality and value are now projected as being one and the same. Expensive art is good art. These are the new rules.
For Comedian, Sotheby’s gave an estimate of $1-$1.5m, implying an institutional belief that it (or rather, one of the three versions of it, like a kind of artistic holy trinity) was now worth about ten times what it made at Art Basel Miami in 2019. I don’t have a particular problem with this, for artworks can indeed climb steeply in value. But what is revealing is the extent to which Sotheby’s justified the significance of Comedian, and their estimate, by focusing on the press coverage it has generated since 2019. In the ‘Literature’ section of the catalogue entry (normally reserved for status-enhancing books and exhibition catalogues) we see almost entirely a list of news and website headlines, from the Wall Street Journal to the Daily Mail. As Sotheby’s says:
Literature
The below is a representative selection of the extensive ongoing media coverage of Comedian. Live coverage is ongoing, and further literature references are available on request.
Later in the catalogue entry, Sotheby’s explicitly links the online and media coverage to value:
“In a matter of days, Comedian had earned its status as a universally recognizable image and become folded into a legacy of propulsive masterworks that incited radical recalibrations for their time [...]. What visitors were so invested in – and what collectors had actually purchased – was not the literal banana and piece of tape, but rather a certificate of authenticity and instructions for installation.”
Comedian is far from the first work of art to court and gain notoriety. But it used not to be the case that notoriety was a literal barometer of artistic merit, and thus value. Our former ways of judging artistic merit were never perfect, but they were certainly more critical and more deeply held than clicks and headlines. For can we know what the clicks really reflect? Do people think Comedian really is the work “of pure genius” Sotheby’s tells us it is? I’m not persuaded they do, and this matters because ultimately we still need people to believe in the broader value of art, just as we ask them to believe that Comedian exists as an artistic concept (and even believe in the cryptocurrency which paid for it).
In other words, the subjective intangibility of art - especially in the modern era - requires us (by which I mean those of us in the art world) to maintain a degree of public confidence in it, and we damage that at our peril. Auction houses like Sotheby's, with their healthy commissions, must find it hard not to see works like Comedian as a chance to make more headlines and more money, and doubtless enjoy being part of the game themselves. But they need to be careful, and think of their wider responsibility to art. For many, the sale of Comedian for $6m, at a time of multiple, terrible wars, not to mention the gurning, toe-curling applause as the hammer came down, felt like a giant art market self-own, demonstrating a Marie Antoinette-like detachment from reality; ‘let them eat bananas’. Either way, it feels like art needs a revolution, and perhaps it has already begun, far away from the art fairs, auctions, collectors, curators and commentators.
Does any of this matter? I think it does, if only for this reason: art can be made of anything or nothing – a mere concept – but it must have a meaning. Usually that meaning is rooted in truth. A banana on a wall can reveal a profound truth about the art world and its market, but not if it is in fact designed to be part of, and benefit from, the market. That’s just hypocrisy. Comedian has purpose - to make money - but no meaning. Without the market, it is nothing. That’s why it must exist simultaneously as both concept and object (one of three), so that it can be given a value, and live on as a speculative financial construct. And if we agree that is art, then it is the end of art, isn’t it?
As ever on AHN, let us know what you think.
Update - an artist writes:
Having just read your article on the sale of the above a little while ago, I thought I'd take up your invitation to let you know what I think.
I think the sale of the work confirms, to many people, that the contemporary art world is a joke. The amount that it sold for confirms that it is a joke at their expense, perpetrated by a contemptuous elite.
I agree that art and invention have always gone hand-in-hand, but invention has always been just one element, not the main event. Artist's used to try to PLEASE the public, but since Duchamp, they simply TROLL the public for a response. This is why the level of response, measured in clicks and column inches, is now converted into charts as the principle indicator of financial value.
'What is the point of art?' is like asking what is the point of life? As a painter, I'm very conscious of the fact that historically, painters and artists have been living examples of a great life lesson; we take dust and we strive to turn it into treasure. When we succeed, we may also please the public but it is the act of striving which is the important part of the lesson, the result, the artwork is merely a reward for that striving, both for the artist and the public.
Making such art used to be difficult and time consuming. The public have always admired that about artists. But if your goal is just to troll the public for a response, then it has to be neither difficult nor time consuming and the result is what counts, not the life lesson.
Art fundamentally changed with Duchamp. His admirers like to refer to that moment as a great and wonderful revolution. For those of us who don't appreciate being the victims of trolls, it was the moment that art died. 'Comedian' is just the latest in a long list of successful trolls, with zero benefit to broader humanity.
Rosso Fiorentino at Sotheby's
November 26 2024
Video: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Sotheby's have published the following video on Rosso Fiorentino's The Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist which is being offered in their upcoming London Old Master Paintings Evening sale. In addition to this, the auction house have produced the following video describing Artemisia Gentileschi's Mary Magdalene in Meditation which is being offered in the same sale.
Elizabeth I soars at Christie's Paris
November 26 2024
Picture: Christie's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The following Portrait of Elizabeth I soared past its 20,000 - 30,000 EUR estimate at the Christie's Paris online sale the other day to realise an impressive 176,400 EUR (inc. premium). The painting had formerly been in the collection of the Dukes of Westminster until it was sold in 1992.
