Sotheby's Results
December 7 2023
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Yesterday's Sotheby's London Old Master Paintings Evening Sale realised a total of £19,423,500 (inc. fees), with 20 out of the 27 lots being sold (74% sell-through rate).
The auction's top lot, Rembrandt's Adoration of the Kings, hammered down to one bidder at £9.5m. We will presume this to be the third-party who placed the Irrevocable Bid indicated by the auction house in their catalogue and website. This is of course quite the transformation of a painting which sold as 'Circle of Rembrandt' for 860,000 euros back in 2021.
The majority of paintings which sold seemed to have performed well against their estimates.* The only painting to soar past its estimate was Francesco Renaldi's Portrait of a Mughal Lady, which realised £825,500 over its £300k - 500k estimate. The market for paintings of Indian subjects by foreign artists appears to be increasingly bouyant at the moment, both for landscapes and portraits (click here to see a particularly impressive price for a Thomas Daniell which sold at the beginning of this year). This certainly seems to be an area of the market to watch.
All eyes on the sale at Christie's which opens for bidding this afternoon!
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* - I should of course reiterate and disclose my affiliation with Sotheby's as a consultant.
