London’s Old Master sales set new records
Sotheby’s scored a coup this week when Turner’s large canvas Modern Rome. Campo Vaccino, completed in 1839, sold for a record £29.7m (est £12m-£18m) to the J. Paul Getty Museum after fierce bidding over the work at the 7 July old master sale in London. This market relies upon a shrinking supply of great and rare works, and the Turner ticked all the boxes. “It’s a wonderful work, and I wish I’d got it,” said New York dealer Richard Feigen, who was one of several under-bidders vying for the piece.
Modern Rome was one of only a few paintings by Turner of this calibre remaining in private hands—it was once owned by Hannah Rothschild—and has not been on the market for 132 years. The artist produced around 600 oil paintings in his life, and “was incredibly selective about who he sold them to,” said Sotheby’s head of British paintings, Emmeline Hallmark, adding: “He only ever sold around 90 oil paintings, and of that 90 there are probably four or five comparable.” The work is in particularly good condition for a Turner—the artist worked in various media, and it “is very easy to disturb the balance and surface of his pictures,” according to Sotheby’s international department head Alex Bell. “But this has been unusually well-preserved.”
It was the top lot in a 57-work sale that totalled £53.5m against a presale estimate of £33.8m-£49.6m (estimates don not include buyers’ premium, totals do), and was 68% sold by lot.
Aside from the Turner, the sale did as expected. “The things we expected to die, died, and those we expected to do well, did so,” said London-based dealer Johnny van Haeften. He came out on top in a bidding war with Colnaghi’s Conrad Bernheimer and a Russian dealer for Isack van Ostade’s A Frozen river landscape…, 1644, which hammered down at £1.6m (est £600,000-£800,000). Van Haeften said: “It was one of the last opportunities to get an exterior scene by the artist, and this is exceptional. I’ve been watching the work for several years, and was delighted to finally get it,” he said, adding that he bought the work for stock though expected to sell it soon—“I’m clutching my mobile,” he joked.
Bernheimer was more successful at Christie’s sale the previous night, where he bought the top lot—Ruben’s Portrait of a commander being dressed for battle, around 1612-1614, for £9m. The painting, one of two being sold by the trustees of the Spencer Collection, hammered at its £8m low estimate, which some in the trade said was because of the slightly weak portrait of a young boy in the right-hand corner. “It’s a great painting but the estimate was quite high,” said Bernheimer, who was bidding on behalf of a client. “Christie’s obviously had quite a fierce competition with Sotheby’s the get the work, so had to give big prices.”
Christie’s fared less well overall than Sotheby’s, totalling £42m, with 70% of the 67 lots selling. The other work from the Spencer Collection, Guercino’s 7-foot-high canvas King David, 1651 (est £5m-£8m) failed to fly, and was bought by Dickinson for £5.2m. Some were surprised that the work didn’t go for more but Richard Feigen said: “Right now that’s a lot of money for a Guercino. The Italian baroque artists have been undervalued compared with artists such as Picasso or Giacometti. This result could indicate that these works will get more expensive–it’s long overdue.” Trade sources said King David might be heading to the National Gallery.
The second-highest lot at Christie’s was Georg Pencz’s imposing Portrait of Sigismund Baldinger, around 1540, which Milwaukee-based art investor Alfred Bader bought for a record £5.6m (est £5m-£8m). “The condition is unbelievably good,” said Bader after the sale. “It was stolen from the Jews in the 1940s, and has taken until now to come good,” he said, referring to the fact that the work came to auction as the result of a recent restitution after being sold under duress by Baron Herzog in 1941. Pencz, who studied in Dürer’s studio, is better known for his print-making, but the market responded well to both the painting’s condition and commanding presence.
After the mixed results of the London auctions of both post-war and contemporary, and impressionist and modern works, both auction houses have reason to feel relieved. Overall, though, the sales showed the strains of a lack of supply. Mediocre works failed to find a market, and both houses buoyed their old master offerings with works from the 19-th century. “Great paintings these days don’t come out very easily,” said Richard Feigen. ‘You don’t see 19th-century works in an old master auction unless you’re short of material.”
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LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today that it made a successful bid at auction on J.M.W Turner's masterpiece painting Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino. The auction took place at Sotheby's in London on Wednesday, July 7.
08 July '10
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Arnold Friberg, a widely popular artist of historical and religious scenes whose painstaking quest for stunning realism led him to Valley Forge, Pa., on a winter’s day to paint what became a famous portrait of George Washington praying in the snow, died Thursday in Salt Lake City. He was 96.
03 July '10
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More than 5.2 million people visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the fiscal year that ended Wednesday, the institution’s best performance since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
04 July '10
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POLICE in Surrey are seeking information about this man, pictured here, in connection with the theft of six paintings and Georgian writing desk worth total of around £25,000 from an antiques shop in Dorking earlier this month.
06 July '10
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The latest contemporary art sales in London were a little flatter than expected, but Modern British art generated a batch of stand-out prices.
05 July '10
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LONDON'S brand new fair, Masterpiece, closed on June 29, but already by the end of the preview on June 23 it was clear that not only was the event a winner, but it had broken the mould of international antiques fairs.
02 July '10
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A picture in London’s National Gallery show "Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries" might have been painted by the eccentric English artist.
06 July '10
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Art collector Charles Saatchi has a gift for Britain. It includes Tracy Emin's messy bed, Grayson Perry's explicit pottery and a room full of engine oil.
01 July '10
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Wu Guanzhong, a master of modern Chinese painting, died Friday in Beijing. He was 90.
29 June '10
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German police have recovered a 400-year-old painting attributed to Italian master Caravaggio worth tens of millions of pounds stolen two years ago from a museum in Ukraine.
28 June '10
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The Getty Research Institute (GRI) announced today that it has acquired an important group of letters and postcards from the Belgian surrealist René Magritte.
25 June '10
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The High Museum of Art will host “Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century,” the first major retrospective in the U.S. in more than 30 years of one of photography’s most original and influential masters.
25 June '10
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LONDON.- “The main aisle on the opening night of LIFAF was like a conveyor of celebrities and luxury!” exclaimed veteran Olympia exhibitor Gordon Watson.
25 June '10
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LONDON — Even the magic of a Blue Period Picasso could not seduce collectors into loosening their purse strings at Christie’s here on Wednesday night, in spite of considerable excitement leading up to the sale. Although five bidders went for Picasso’s “Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto (The Absinthe Drinker),” a soulful 1903 canvas depicting the artist’s friend seated at a Barcelona cafe table and shrouded in tobacco smoke, bidding was slow and deliberate. The painting sold to an unidentified collector for $46.3 million, or $51.8 million with commission — just above the low end of the price range that had been estimated, and far below the high of $60 million.
24 June '10
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NEW YORK – A sale of photographs from the collection of the Polaroid Corporation brought in $12.5 million, setting an auction record for iconic photographer Ansel Adams and new marks for the medium by artists including Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, and David Hockney.
23 June '10
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LONDON – Sotheby's sold an Edouard Manet self-portrait for 22.4 million pounds ($33.1 million) on Tuesday, a record for the artist but toward the lower end of pre-sale expectations of 20-30 million pounds.
23 June '10
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Damien Hirst is bidding to launch his first gallery, in Hyde Park. He and architect Mike Rundell have submitted plans to the Royal Parks to create a gallery space from an old munitions store.
20 June '10
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After four years of painstaking investigation, the outer stone coffin of the Wuhui Concubine of the Tang Dynasty has been returned to China. The important relic was stolen from her mausoleum and shipped abroad, although we can't say precisely when that happened. The good news is that the coffin is now on display at the Shaanxi History Museum.
18 June '10
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