STELLAR NIGHT FOR OLD MASTERS AT SOTHEBY’S LONDON

Facts & Figures:

• Evening sale total: £24,164,000 / $30,581,958 – far exceeding the estimate of £13.3-19.4m
  • Nearly 60% lots sold for over their high-estimates
  • 6 works sold for over £1million
• 60% of the lots sold had never been sold at auction previously. Nearly three-quarters of lots sold had either not previously been sold at auction, or were last offered half a century or more ago.
• Over 4,200 visitors to 5-day preview exhibition

Deep bidding, including:  

• Opening the sale, a pair of beautifully well-preserved mid-15th century panels illustrating scenes from the Passion of Christ (Lot 1), which sold to a buyer in the room for more than double its estimate at £102,000 / $129,091.
• Over 10 minutes, 9 bidders battled for Botticelli (Lot 3), with participants including those from other collecting categories, including Contemporary art (further details below).
• 3 bidders competed for Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ The Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (Lot 10), bringing it to £2,400,000 / $3,037,440 (est. £600,000-1,000,000).
• 4 bidders – all in the sale room – competed for Antonio Joli’s view of Venice (Lot 19), which sold for many multiples of its estimate at £360,000 / $455,616 (est. £80,000-120,000).
• Closing the sale to applause, Gustav Klimt and Ernst Klimt’s unique canvas (Lot 26) was competed for by 6 bidders (including from Asia), to make 16 times more than its last appearance in Sotheby’s sale room (further details below).

Highlights From Across the Evening: 

• 9 bidders competed for Sandro Botticelli’s The Virgin and Child enthroned (Lot 3), which sold for £9,960,000 / $12,605,376.
  • Acquired by Lady Wantage in 1904, this Florentine Renaissance painting by the young artist had remained in the same family collection for over a century.
  • The highest price for an early work by Botticelli, and now ranking as among the artist’s top 5 prices at auction.
• Rosso Fiorentino’s rediscovered The Virgin and Child with Infant Saint John the Baptist (Lot 5) sold to a bidder in the room for a record £2,880,000 / $3,644,928.
  • A quintessential example of Florentine Mannerism, this is the most significant example by the artist to come to market in the modern era.
• A seminal work by the greatest animal painter of the 18th century, George Stubbs’s The Spanish Pointer (Lot 20), sold for £1,800,000 / $2,278,080.
  • The earliest and one of the most familiar of all Stubbs’ depictions of dogs, it was painted at the same moment as the artist’s beloved Whistlejacket.
  • It last appeared at auction in 1972, selling for £30,000.
  • Second highest price for a painting of this subject by the artist.
• A unique work painted by both Gustav and Ernst Klimt, Hanswurst Delivering an Impromptu Performance in Rothenburg (Lot 26) met competition from 6 bidders, sold for £2,220,000 / $2,809,632.
  • An iteration of Ernst Klimt’s monumental decorative panel for the grand staircase of the Burgtheater in Vienna, this easel version was started in 1892 – the year he died unexpectedly aged twenty-nine. The large-scale, highly-detailed painting was completed by his grief-stricken brother.
  • In the finished oil, some of the faces in the original ceiling composition have been replaced with new portraits of family members.
  • The painting was last offered at auction 40 years ago, when it sold for £140,000.
• A record for Pieter Claeissens the Elder (Lot 2), one of the most important artistic figures in mid-16th century Bruges. The recently-reunited triptych, dated to around 1564, sold for £360,000 / $455,616 – after nearly a century of separation.

Also this Week at Sotheby’s in London:

• Treasures, the most important annual sale of decorative arts, totalled £4.5 million / $5.7 million. The auction was led by a historical rediscovery – a magnificent set of four Louis XV gilt-bronze wall-appliques thought to have been made for Madame de Pompadour, that have been in the collection at Swinton Park in Yorkshire for the last 140 years, which made £1.9 million / $2.4 million, following extended bidding in the room and on the phones – a world record for 18th-century appliques. Further pieces with distinguished European provenance will be offered in Sotheby’s Paris chapter of Treasures on 11 December.
• Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art totalled £1.8 million / $2.3 million, led by a Roman Marble Torso of Aphrodite (Lot 430, sold for £360,000) and a Roman Marble Statue of a Peplophoros (Lot 434, which soared to £246,000, almost 10 times its estimate).
• 19th & 20th Century Sculpture totalled £617,760 / $774,208.

Still to Come: 

• Old Master & 19th Century Paintings Day Auction (5 December 2024)
• Old Master Prints (6 December 2024)

For results on all of the works in the auction, visit the catalogue here.