The top lot of the sale was a canvas by Michael Sweerts, which went for£12.615.000 ($16.021.050), setting a new auction record for the artist. This long-lost painting, The Artist’s Studio with a Seamstress, was sold 6 times the low estimate, and 4 times the previous auction record of Sweerts.
This painting was famous for its various copies, but its original was unknown until now. It recently emerged from a house in France in spectacularly untouched condition and on its original stretcher. The Belgian artist supposedly painted it around 1646-49 in Rome – where he lived in his late 20s and early 30s. The painting depicts the interior of a studio, with an artist painting a seamstress and a young studio assistant seated next to a pile of plaster casts of classical sculptures.
Michael Sweerts
The Artist’s Studio with a Seamstress, around 1646-49
Oil on canvas, unlined
79 x 108 cm.
Estimate: £2M – £3M
Sold for £12.615.000 ($16.021.050)
Rembrandt’s Portrait of Jan Willemsz. van der Pluym and Jaapgen Carels, the last known pair of portraits in private hands, sold for £11.235.000 ($14.268.450). They are rare and intimate portrayals of relatives of the artist, at auction 200 years after they were last seen at Christie’s. The two works had been in the same family collection in the U.K. since 1824.
Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn
Portrait of Jan Willemsz. van der Pluym (circa 1565-1644)
and Portrait of Jaapgen Carels (1565-1640)
Oil on panel, oval
20 x 16 cm; 19 x 16 cm
Estimate £5M – £8M
Sold for £11.235.000 ($14.268.450)
The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John the Baptist and the Magdalen at the Foot of the Cross, a pioneering early work by Fra Angelico realized £5.001.000 ($6.351.270), an auction record for one of the greatest masters of the early Florentine Renaissance. The work, dating from around 1420, was discovered in the collection of the Marquesses of Northampton in 1996 by Francis Russell, Vice-Chairman of Christie’s UK.
Fra Angelico
The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John the Baptist and the Magdalen, circa 1420
Tempera on gold ground panel, arched, the original engaged frame regilded
59 x 34 cm
Estimate £4M – £6M
Sold for £5.001.000 ($6.351.270)
“The works in the sale garnered much excitement in the Old Masters market, and in the build-up to the sale drew record numbers of visitors to the view in London and preview tours in New York, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and Paris.” said Clementine Sinclair, Head of Christie’s London Old Masters. She added that the result of this sale “underlines the demand for works that are fresh to the market, with interesting provenance and in exceptional original condition.”
In total, Christie’s Classic Week Evening sales (The Exceptional Sale, Old Masters Part I Sale, and Remastered: Old Masters from the Collection of J.E. Safra) realized £68.156.850 ($86.559.200) with 80% of sold lots.
Other notable Old Masters sales this year include Peter Paul Rubens‘s Portrait of a Man as Mars, which sold for $26.187 Million at Sotheby’s New York in May. Last January, his painting Salome presented with the head of Saint John the Baptist went for $26.926 Million, Rubens’s 3rd-highest auction result. At Christie’s London on July 2016, his Lot and His Daughters (circa 1613–14) went for $58.1 Million.
Peter Paul Rubens
Portrait of a Man as Mars, circa 1620
Oil on Baltic oak panel
85 x 67 cm
Estimate $20M – $30M
Sold for $26.926 M (Sotheby’s New York, 2023)
Peter Paul Rubens
Portrait of a Man as Mars, circa 1620
Oil on Baltic oak panel
85 x 67 cm
Estimate $20M – $30M
Sold for $26.926 M (Sotheby’s New York, 2023)
In January 2023, at Christie’s New York, Francisco Goya’s Portrait of Doña Maria Vicenta Barruso Valdés, seated on a sofa with a lap-dog; and Portrait of her mother Doña Lronara Antonia Valdés de Barruso, seated on chair holding a fan, sold for $16.4 Million, more than doubling the artist’s previous auction record of $7.7 Million.
Francisco José De Goya y Lucientes
Portrait of Doña María Vicenta Barruso Valdés, seated on a sofa with a lap-dog; and Portrait of her mother Doña Leonora Antonia Valdés de Barruso, seated on a chair holding a fan, 1805’
Oil on canvas
105 x 84 cm each
Estimate $15M – $20M
Sold for $16.4 M (Christie’s New York, 2023)
It should be noted that the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction was an Old Master painting : Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, acquired for more than $450 Million in November 2017 (Christie’s New York). In our next newsletter we will analyse the market for Old Masters and the new interest in young artists reinventing the classics.