At Christie's great masters of painting and Rembrandt engravings on the shields
After the French exploits with Reni and Rubens, ancient art in the city realised 12.7 million, but with 10 unsold, with the first catalogue and 8.6 million with the Josefowitz collection
The London week dedicated to classical art at the beginning of December reaffirmed the importance of this marketplace in the European context, despite the growth of the Paris market, which saw two multimillion realisations in the last week of November. On 25 November, Artcurial in Paris realised EUR 21.2 million, including EUR 12.4 million thanks to a new record for a Guido Reni painting of David and Goliath recently rediscovered, as well as the Christ on the Cross' by Rubens adjudicated by Osenat in Versailles on 30 November for €2.9 million from an estimate of 1-2 million.
The following week, auctions of old paintings in London started at Christie's in a context of reduced catalogue numbers. The first evening auction on 2 December at Christie's started more than half an hour late for a good reason: the previous catalogue devoted to a collection of Faberge' jewellery works received a lot of attention and raises, selling a total of £27.8m, thanks to very high sell-through rates and especially the Winter Egg of Russian Imperial provenance which achieved a new record for the category at £22.9m.
The Old Paintings Catalogue
Unfortunately, the energy generated by this sale, thanks in part toYu-ge Wang, a new star among the auctioneers at the auction house, did not transfer to the crowd of Old Master dealers and collectors who took over the room for the Old Master catalogue, which realised a total of £12.7m with 10 unsold lots out of the 31 offered, after the withdrawal of two works including a Beccafumi Holy Family estimated at £1-1.5m.
Among the unsold lots was a religious painting of large format but not excellent quality by Artemisia Gentileschi (estimate £400-600,000) and two other Italian works, a Martyr by Dolci and a male portrait by Giandomenico Tiepolo, while one of the few guaranteed lots in the auction, a pleasing view of the Grand Canal in Venice by Bernardo Bellotto probably ended up being sold to the guarantor after a bid below the estimate of £1-1.5m, for £1.2m with commission. A similar fate for a composition by Luca Giordano and Giovanni Battista Ruoppolo, a monumental 'Allegory of Autumn' that is difficult to place in a domestic setting due to its more than three metres, won after a single bid at a low estimate of £400,000, or £508,000 with commission. By contrast, a complete set of the Four Seasons dated 1573, depicted in the characteristic manner of Arcimboldo's studio, fetched the high estimate of £1.2m or £1.5m with commission.
The main realisation of the evening, however, did not come from the Italian school, but from Gerrit Dou, whose rare and highly detailed interior composition with 'Flute Player' surpassed the guaranteed estimate of £2-3 million contended for up to £3.1 million, or £3.8 million with commissions, thanks in part to its unbroken 125-year provenance from an English collection.
A Rubens model for the Martyrdom of St Paul reached the high estimate of £1.2 million thanks to commissions.
In addition to Italian, Dutch and Flemish works, the catalogue also featured a selection of English paintings including three large compositions by the 18th century academic painter William Hodges that were important testimonies of the colonial period in India, which were disputed to realise a total of £775,000. Also contested was the rare and dramatic painting of a shipwreck with a proto-Impressionist character by Richard Parkes Bonington which exceeded its estimate at £889,000. The results generally rewarded the most prestigious works, while the market below half a million seemed fatigued by reduced gallery activity.
