By Carter B. Horsley
This auction of Old Master Paintings at Sotheby's is one of the best in several years with many superb works although no "blockbusters."
The finest work is Lot 9, "Peasant Wedding Procession," a large and panoramic outdoor scene by Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1637/8). An oil on panel that measures 29 1/8 by 48 5/8 inches, it is dated 1630. Unlike most genre works by the Brueghels, this has a very dramatic and unusual composition and is highly stylized in its treatment of the right foreground and the windmill. It has a very conservative estimate of $1,200,000 to $1,600,000. It sold for $2,704,000. The catalogue notes that there are 7 versions of this work and that this is dated the same year as an example in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp. "The composition itself is based on a lost prototype by the artist's father, Pieter Brueghel the Elder. A version of the scene, which has sometimes been published as by the Elder Brugehel himself, is in the Musee Communale de la Ville de Bruxelles. It is now convincingly given to Jan Brughel the Elder," the entry continued.
Another work by the same artist is Lot 19, "L'Auberge St. Michel." An oil on panel, it measures 20 1/4 by 33 1/4 inches. It is a more conventional and less dramatic work than Lot 9. It has an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It sold for $1,192,000. Only about two-thirds of the offered lots were sold in this auction.
Lot 34 is one of the finest works in the auction. Entitled "The Triumph of Fame, the Triumph of Time and the Triumph of Eternity," it is a cassone panel of tempera on panel with gold ground by Domenico di Michelino (1417-1491). According to the catalogue, "the subject of this painting is inspired by one of the most well-known literary texts of the Trecento: Petrarch's I Trionfi. Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) was born in Arezzo and though he lived in Provence from 1311, he settled in Italy after 1353. In 1327 he set eyes on a woman he named Laura, with whom he fell in love and whom he celebrated in his poetry; she served as inspiration for numerous works of art in the ensuing centuries including Giorgione's only signed and dated work, the famous portrait in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Petrarch's Trionfi, whe he worked on from 1350 until his death almost twenty-five years later, were initially inspired by Laura and desribed processions commemorating love, chastity, death, fame, time and eternity." The lot has a conservative estimte of $800,000 to $1,000,000. It sold for $1,696,000.
Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain(1604/5-1682), and Nicholas Poussin have long been regarded as among the greatest French painters of their days, but many of their works appear to this observer rather academic and static. Lot 51, "Pastoral Landscape with Huntsmen," is, however, a superb and lovely work by Claude Lorrain. An oil on canvas, it measures 39 1/2 by 52 3/8 inches.
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"Claude is perhaps the most enduringly admired and imitated landscape painter of the western tradition; his compositions have inspired artists as diverse as Turner and Vernet (and even landscape architects like Capability Brown who attempted to create actual, living vistas to rival Claude's two dimensional compositions). He was patronized nad later collected by the international elite - popes, cardinals, princes and kings - on a scale that rivaled in his day only by Rubens and van Dyck.Working for most of his life in Rome, Claude eschewed the earlier, somewhat drier, landscape style of his master Agostino Tassi and other contemporaries such as the Fleming Paulus Bril and, under the influence of the Caracci school - particularly Domenichino - reinvented the idealized, Arcadian landscape. Using drawings taken from ntaure, in which he anticipated the painters of both the Barbizon and Impressionist schools, Claude was able to compose his landscapes with great naturalism, making revolutionary use of light and dark, form and space, to create idealized pictures which presented a nature that was more perfect than nature itself."
The lot, which was once in the collection of the Smith College Museum of Art, has a conservative estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. It failed to sell, surprisingly.
Lot 65 is a wonderful Venetian scene of the Piazzo San Marco by Bernardo Bellotto (1721-1780). An oil on canvas, it measures 24 by 36 1/2 inches. Bellotto studied "view" paintings under his famous uncle, Canaletto. It has an estimate of $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. It sold for $4,720,000.
Another very good work by Pieter Brueghel the Younger is Lot 7, "The Bird Trap." An oil on panel, it measures 17 7/8 by 26 1/2 inches. It has a modest estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It failed to sell.
Lot 38 is a very fine "Sacra Conversazione" that depicts the Madonna and Child with St. John the Bapist and a female saint that the catalogue states is "probably Saint Catherine." An oil on panel that measures 25 by 35 1/2 inches, it is by Jacopo Negretti called Palma il Vecchio (1480-1528). "After the death of Giorgione in 1510 and of Giovanni Bellini in 1516, Palma's studio became the leading workshop in the city [Venice] and demand for paintings in his style remained high even after his death....Palma's only competition in the 1510s was the younger Titian..." The lot has a modest estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It sold for $441,600.
Lot 27 consists of a pair of full-length portraits of Saints Philip and Paul, both egg tempera on panel, by Giovanni Francesco da Rimini (1420-1469). They are very strong and the catalogue notes that they "were certainly at one time part of a larger altarpiece with the panels, now cropped, originally shaped as Gothic arches." "His works show a knowledge of Venetian Gothic painting, as well as the strong stylistic influence of Florentine artists such as Fra Filippo Lippi and Benozzo Gozzoli," it added. The lot, which was consigned from the collections of the Zanesville Art Center, has a conservative estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. It sold for $632,000.
Lot 39 is a very beautiful Madonna and Child by Antonio di Benedetto Aquilio, called Antoniazzo (before 1452-1508/12). A gold ground and tempera on penal, itmeasures 25 by 40 1/2 inches. The work has the strength and delicacy of a Crivelli. It has a modest estimate of $150,000 to $200,000. It failed to sell.
One of the auction's most intriguing works is Lot 37, "The Madonna and Sleeping Christ Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist," by Piero di Cosimo (1461/61-1521). Works by di Cosimo are very rare. This lovely oil on panel is a tondo that is 34 1/2 inches in diameter. Some of his most famous works have unusual subjects and he was the teacher of Fra Bartolomeo, Albertinelli, Pontormo and probably Andrea del Sarto. The rock structure in this composition is related to one in his tondo in the Museo Horne in Florence. The lot has a very modest estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. It sold for $396,800.
One of the most charming pictures in the auction is Lot 25, "Nymphs Bathing," by Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598-1657). An oil on panel that measures 14 1/4 by 18 1/2 inches, it has a modest estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. The naked child in the center foreground is blowing bubbles. It sold for $120,000.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is inexpicably deaccessioning a major painting by Benjamin West (1738-1820), "The Battle of La Hogue." An oil on canvas, it measures 64 1/2 by 96 inches and was executed in 1778 and "retouched 1806."
"On the 11th of May, 1806, the painter Joseph Farington (1747-1821) visited the studio of Benjamin West, until recently the president of the Royal Academy before his resignation was forced by a group of Academicians, including his fellow American Copley. There Farington viewed among other works a set of three large history paintings, of the type that made West's reputation. West had planned the exhibition as a pointed reminder to the members of the Academy of the powers of their former head: it proved a huge success, with some 6,500 entrance cards issued ....The canvases formed a triad of great British military victories, the just completed Death of Lord Nelson (Now Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), and versions of his two most famous pictures, The Death of Wolfe (now Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto) and this Battle of La Hogue . ...The first version of this painting was painted for Richard, Lord Grosvenor, who owned a group of five large-scale works by west (including the Wolfe) depicting scenes of 'modern' English history, and is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. ...While the Washington canvas is neither signed or dated, the present version is signed and is dated twice....It seems reasonable, therefore, to assume that at least the preliminary work was started on the present version as early as 1778, and only finally finsihed by West himself in 1806."
The lot has a very modest estimate of $250,000 to $350,000. It sold for $632,000.
Lot 74 is a very rare work that the catalogue states is by Donatello (1386-1466), one of the greatest sculptors of the Renaissance. It is a terracotta relief, 32 1/2 inches high and was executed circa 1450. It is known as the Borromeo Madonna. It has an estimate of $4,000,000 to $6,000,000. It sold for $4,440,000 and was acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.
Lot 23 is a fine river landscape by Philips Koninck (1619-1688). An oil on canvas, it measures 33 by 47 1/2 inches. "As with the landscapes of Rembrandt and [Hercules] Seghers, Koninck's work is at a remove from the mainstream of Dutch landscape painting, and harks back to an earlier, Flemish tradition. In their seemingly limitless extension of space rendered with subtle and repeated gradations of tone, his panoramas may be seen as interpretations of the imaginary landscapes of Joos de Momper and his contemporaries," the catalogue entry for his lot noted. It has an estimate of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. It sold for $1,696,000.
Lot 8 is a small but very lovely and fine river landscape by Salomon van Ruysdael (1600/3-1670). An oil on panel, it measures 13 1/4 by 20 1/8 inches and is dated 1636. The lot, which is one of the more handsome works in his oeuvre, has a modest estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. It sold for $228,000.
Lot 70 is a very handsome work that some experts have suggested was painted, according to the catalogue, "in collaboration by Jacopo and his son, Francesco" Bassano. Another expert, the catalogue continued, however, believes it to be a studio replica on a similar work in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court. Other versions are in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice and one formerly in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne. The lot has an estimate of $250,000 to $350,000. The lot failed to sell.
Lot 10 is a small but excellent work by Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669). Entitled "Study of an Elderly Woman in a White Cap," it is an oil on panel that measures 21 by 14 3/4 inches.
"This is an important re-discovered work by Rembrandt, painted in Amsterdam around 1640, which came to light in 2003, and upon completion of detailed examination and research by the Rembrandt Research Project and painstaking cleaning by Martin Bijl, was publicly unveiled in the building where it was probably painted - the Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam - in October 2005. In the 19th and early 20th Centuries it had been known and admired as an authentic work by the artist, and repeatedly published as such by distinguished scholars such as Cornelius Hofstede de Groot and Walter Valentiner, but following Valentiner's last publication of it in 1931, it was completed ignored by all Rembrandt scholars until 2005, with the exception of Werner Sumowski, who knew it only from an old photograph, and who made passing reference to it in a footnote.....While it is unquestionably entirely Rembrandtesque in character, this painting does not at all resemble Rembrandt's portraits of women. Seen in the context of Rembrandt's oil studies, however, it is clear that it finds a natural place in Rembrandt's oeuvre: stylistic and technical characteristics as well as its masterly quality and brilliancy of execution are decisive in confirming this."
The lot has a conservative estimate of $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. It sold for $4,272,000.
An equally impressive and fine small portrait is Lot 15, "A Bearded Old Man," by Gerrit Dou (1613-1675). An oil on panel, it measures 7 by 5 inches. It has an modest estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It sold for $1,248,000.
Lot 72 is a still life entitled "Flowers in a terracotta vase on a marble ledge" by Jan van Huysum (1682-1749). According to the catalogue, "this panel, a masterpiece of Dutch still life, epitomizes the achievements of Jan van Huysum, the greatest Dutch flower painter of the 18th Century....Van Huysum introduced a completely new and much lighter palette to flower painting, aided by newly discovered pigments, and this transformation of colour extends throughout his pictures, so that often luminous backgrounds are completely unlike anything seen before. With a radically altered palette comes a completely different approach to lighting still life." The lot has an estimate of $6,000,000 to $8,000,000. It sold for $7,296,000 to Noortman Master Paintings.
Another work by a not well-known master is Lot 21, "Cattle in a Field, with Travelers in a Wagon on a Track Beyond and a Church Tower in the Distance, a Rain Storm Approaching," by Paulus Pieterz. Potter (1625-1654). An oil on panel, it measures 14 3/4 by 22 inches. It has an estimate of $2,500,000 to $3,500,000. It sold for $4,048,000. "Paulus Potter was one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age," the catalogue noted, adding that "his singular contribution to Dutch 17th Century art was that he painted portraits of animals."
Both the van Huysum and the Potters might well be overlooked by many museum-goers as they are nice but not sensational. Lot 22, however, "The Seduction," by Caspar Netscher (1639-1684), would most likely grab their attention for its exquisite handling of the textures of the clothing worn by the women depicted. It has a modest estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It sold for $1,864,000.
Lot 2, "An Elaborate Architectural Capriccio with Jephthah and His Daughter," by Dirck van Delen (1605-1671) is a handsome oil on panel that measures 50 1/2 by 77 1/8 inches and is dated 1633. It has an estimtae of $150,000 to $200,000. It sold for $441,600.
Lot 6, "Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Flanked by Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and Saint Dorothy, within a Hortus Conclusus," is a stunning and very interesing small panel by the Master of Sainte Gudule, who was active in Brussels circa 1480. The oil on panel measures 17 1/2 by 18 1/4 inches. It has an estimate of $800,000 to $1,000,000. It failed to sell.
Lot 240 is a very fine "Lamentation of Christ" by the Master of Hoogstraten (active Antwerp, circa 1505). An oil on panel, it measures 14 3/8 by 10 1/2 inches. It has an modest estimate of $30,000 to $40,000. It sold for $45,000. About three-quarters of the offered lots in this auction were sold.
Lot 267 is a fine rendition of "The Calumny of Apelles" that the catalogue states is a follower of Francisco Salviati, called Cecchino Salviati. An oil on panel, it measures 22 7/8 by 35 3/8 inches. It has a very modest estimate of $20,000 to $30,000. It sold for $48,000.
Lot 295, "Portrait of a Woman, Head and Shoulders," is described in the catalogue as by a "follower of Raffaello Sanzio, called Raphael" and is dated first half of the 17th Century. An oil on panel, it measures 15 3/4 by 12 3/4 inches. The painting was possibly in the collection of the 4th Earl of Radnor in the 19th Century. Dr. Gustave Waagen rejected an attribution then to Raphael "in favour of Sebastiano del Piombo." The lot has an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000. It sold for $665,600!
In this auction, Sotheby's initiated a new type of auction in which dealers offered works from their inventory that were in "ready to hang" condition, that is, were cleaned, and restored if necessary, and framed.
In addition, Sotheby's and the dealers had the offered works "vetted" by a group of experts that included Simon Levie, a former director general of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Frits Duparc, the director of The Maurithuis in The Hague, Martin Bijl, the former chief restorer to the Risjksmuseum in Amsterdam, Scott Schaefer, the curator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Peter C. Sutton, the executive director of the Bruce Museum in Connecticut and Edgar Peters Bowron, the Audrey Jones Black curator of European Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
Lot 104 is a stunning pair of still lifes with birds and nets and whistles by Jacobus Biltius (1633-1681). They were consigned by the Propertyof Rob Smeets Old Master Paintings. The pair has an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. It sold for $216,000 to Noortman Master Paintings.
This auction was not very successful with only about half of the offered works selling, but George Wachter, vice chairman of Sotheby's Old Masters Department, maintained that it was a good "learning experience" that would be repeated.
The loveliest work in this auction is Lot 108, "The Lamentation," by Giovani Battista Naldini (1537-1591). An oil on panel, measures only 3 by 9 inches and was consigned by French & Company. It has a modest estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. It sold for $84,000. According to the catalogue, Naldini was "Jacopo Pontormo's leading student and artistic heir." "The picture," it continued, "was purchased atthe turn of the 20th Century by Sir Frederick Cook, son of Sir Francis Cook, 1st Baronet and owner of Doughty House....The Cook collection was formed inthe 1840s."
Lot 135 is a very good "View of the Rhine" by Herman Saftleven (1609-1685). An oil on panel, it measures 11 by 15 inches and was consigned by Noortman Master Paintings. It has an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000. It sold for $96,000.
Lot 239 is a very fine and charming landscape by Jan Josephz. van Goyen (1596-1656). An oil on oak panel, it measures 13 1/4 by 22 inches. It has a modest estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. It sold for $144,000.
Moretti has consigned an impressive triptych by the Master of the Lazzaroni Madonna who was active in Florence in the third quarter of the 14th Century. The tempera and gold ground work measures 11 3/8 by 17 3/4 inches. It has an estimate of $150,000 to $200,000. The artist was a follower of Nardo di Cione and late Andrea di Bonaiuto.
Lot 115 is a stunning still life of fruit by the Lombard School, 17th Century. The oil on canvas measures 24 3/4 by 34 inches. It was consigned by the Property of Compagnie des Beaux Arts Ltd. It has an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. It failed to sell. The catalogue notes that the "artist was almost certainly familiar with Caravaggio, whose only certain still life...is now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan."
One of the most exquisite works in this auction is "Don Juan at the Seraglio," a small Orientalist painting by Alexandre-Marie Colin (1798-1873). Anoil on canvas, it measures 16 1/8 by 13 inches and was consigned by Blondeau et Associés. It has a modest estimate of $30,000 to $40,000. It failed to sell. According to the catalogue, the painting is "a faithful illustration of the fifth canto of Lord Byron's comic epic masterpiece Don Juan.