Young Turner and Italian painting lead the auction at Sotheby's

The cevening catalogue of old paintings offered by Sotheby's on the evening of 3 July in London comprised only 33 lots, which became 31 after two withdrawals, for a total proceeds of £14.5m for the 25 lots sold, while six remained unsold. Although there were no lots with estimates in excess of £3m, three works were protected by guarantees, but these appear to have been outstripped by bids in the room. Six lots in particular received multiple bids, leading to results far exceeding expectations, thanks to conservative estimates and the absence of guarantees.

Lotto 28, JMW Turner, «The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, frm St Vincent's Rock, Bristol», stima 200.000 - 300.000 £

Six of the first seven lots in the catalogue set the positive pace of the auction, which continued to the end with a few exceptions, all finishing among the major realisations. The first lot, a rare fourteenth-century Byzantine icon depicting the Hodegetria, the Mother of God, was hotly contested to £825,000 with commissions, four times the high estimate of £160-200,000. This was followed by a trio of Italian works starting with two 170 cm long gold backgrounds depicting St John, the Baptist and the Evangelist, works by the Sienese Bartolo di Fredi which fetched £444,000 towards the guaranteed low estimate of £400-600,000. More interest was aroused by Lorenzo di Credi's large panel painting of the upright figure of 'St Quirinus of Neuss', a typical six-coloured example of Florentine Renaissance painting, which fetched a new record of £2.7m from an estimate of £2-3m, making it the most expensive lot of the evening. A third Italian painting this time from Spain, a Madonna and Child, was contested to close to £400,000, double the low estimate.

Lotto 3, Lorenzo di Credi, «San Quirino di Neuss», stima 2 - 3 milioni di £

Midway through the auction, the Italian artists were joined by two women painters who trod the art scene at the same time: the now-famous Artemisia Gentileschi with her well-known dramatic scene of David with the head of Goliath, probably from the London period, came close to the high estimate of £2 million, thanks in part to its generous size of more than two metres, while another fallen head, this time that of the Baptist claimed by Salome by the decidedly lesser-known Diana de Rosa was contested by four collectors to end up in the room at a new record of £317.500 pounds, four times the high estimate for a large painting. The realignment of prices of 'rediscovered' female artists therefore continued.

Lotto 7. Corneille de Lyon, «Ritratto di un mercante, tradizionalmente identificato come Theodore Beza», stima 300.000-400.000 £

The most hotly contested painting of the auction, however, was a dramatic view of Turner's coastline: 'The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock Bristol' the first painting exhibited at the age of only 17, which remained in the same collection for over a century and a half, and was only recently attributed to the Master, following its sale at a minor auction last year. The contention between four suitors pushed the final price to £1.9 million from an estimate of £200-300,000, achieved without hesitation with bids of £100,000 each. The quality of the painting and the associated history contributed to the rise in value by animating the contention.

Diana de Rosa (Annella di Massimo), «Salomè con la testa di San Giovanni Battista», stima 60.000-80.000 £

A new record for the French master portrait painter Corneille de Lyon also exceeded expectations, with a severe museum-quality portrait of a merchant doubling its high estimate to £860,000, thus surpassing the lot guarantee. In contrast, two works with multi-million pound estimates failed to find buyers: a typical large-scale interior view by Hammarshoi from 1985 estimated at £2-3m, and a richly adorned female figure, possibly a self-portrait by Clarina Peeters, an artist active in Antwerp in the early 17th century, estimated at £1.2-1.8m. Only four lots failed to reach their respective low estimates before commissions were added, a symptom of a selective but well-disposed market for quality works at non-inflated prices.