Category: Auctions
Poussin goes to the Kimbell
September 9 2011
Picture: Christie's
Nicolas Poussin's Sacrament of the Ordination, which was offered by the Duke of Rutland at Christie's last year, will now go on display at the Kimbell Museum in Texas. Carol Vogel in the New York Times has the story of what happened after it failed to sell:
What few people realized was that the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth was quietly keeping tabs on the painting. “We were watching it closely,” said Eric M. Lee, the Kimbell’s director. “But December was not the right time for us to buy it.”
When it didn’t sell, he added, he “felt it was too important a painting to pass up.” So Mr. Lee approached the museum’s trustees “to see if we could afford it.”
This summer the institution finally made a deal, paying $24.3 million — Christie’s low estimate — without the auction house’s steep buyer’s premium. Robert Holden, a fine-art agent based in London, and George Wachter, head of Sotheby’s old master painting department worldwide, represented the Kimbell.
I wonder how long it will take for the Duke's four remaining Sacrament paintings to end up at the Kimbell...
La Peregrina pearl to be sold
September 8 2011
The famous pearl given to Mary I by Philip II, and worn by her in her portraits, will be sold in December at Christie's. Valued at $2-3m, it was until recently owned by Elizabeth Taylor. Interestingly, a portrait such as the above by Hans Eworth is worth at least twice that.
More on the history of pearl, and Taylor's ownership of it, here.
Art market futures
September 7 2011
Picture: Sotheby's
Here's a first - and a sign of things to come. Next week, Sotheby's in New York will host their first ever Fine Classical Chinese Paintings sale. Above is an anonymous 17th/18th Century Seated Portrait of a Prince (detail), ink and colour on silk, estimated at $90-120,000.
Probably, it won't be long until Chinese Paintings sales are as important as the bi-annual Old Master sales. The only question is, will such sales take place in the West, in Europe and America - or will the world's art market gravitate permanently to Asia?
Fine Zoffany pair to be auctioned
September 6 2011
Picture: Sotheby's
Sotheby's are first out of the blocks with their December Old Master sale highlights. They have secured an impressive pair of paintings by Johann Zoffany, both showing David Garrick, the celebrated actor. Above is The Garden at Hampton House, with Mr & Mrs Garrick taking tea (1762). The other is Mr & Mrs by the Shakespeare Temple at Hampton (also 1762).
The pictures will be sold together with an estimate of £6-8m at Sotheby's December sales. The full Sotheby's press release is here.
The pictures were both part of the important Zoffany exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 1976. Then they were listed as being part of the collection of the Earls of Durham, and as far as I know they still are. The late Earl of Durham was the infamous government minister, Lord Lambton, who scandalised society in the '60s by frequenting prostitutes. He was caught because he insisted on paying by cheque. The current Earl, the 7th, lives at Lambton Castle and Biddick Hall. He used to be play in a band called 'The Frozen Turkeys'.
Deaccession foiled in Scotland
September 5 2011
Picture: Lochaber News
Here's a rarity - a museum in Scotland has been forced to shelve plans for a deaccession after a public outcry. The West Highland Museum wanted to sell Letters and News at the Lochside, 1868, by Henry Tamworth Wells to fund a new extension. It was valued at up to £60,000. But local residents objected, and for now seem to have won. More details here.
Another Bolton deaccessioning sale falters?
September 1 2011
Picture: Bonhams
Last night, another of Bolton Council's 35 deaccessioned paintings went up for sale at Bonhams in Edinburgh. Sea Gulls and Sapphire Seas by Robert Gemmell Hutchison was estimated at £120-£180,000 - but sold for £120,000 including buyer's premium. This means that the bidding fell some way short of the lower estimate. The same thing happened with Bolton's Somnambulist by Millais earlier in the summer, also at Bonhams.
Was the estimate too high? Was it the right sale? An August general sale in Scotland is perhaps not the best time for a museum to be selling a highly prized picture. It seems quite a few pictures failed to sell. Still, the price was the second highest achieved at auction for a work by the artist.
Distasteful 'sleeper' opportunity?
August 4 2011
Picture: Gottlieb Auctions
I recently highlighted the large auction market for Nazi-related items. But for the Nazi collector who has everything, how about a pair of portraits of Hitler's parents? They are on offer at Gottlieb Auctions in the US:
This is a rare opportunity to own an important piece of history: a set of oil paintings liberated from Hitler's mountain retreat. The two most important paintings in the group that was liberated are the original paintings that were commissioned by Adolf Hitler, depicting his parents Klara and Alois Hitler. [...]
Until recently, the whereabouts of these portraits were unknown. Currently owned by a family member of the French veteran who liberated them after the war, these paintings are presented for the first time to the collecting public and students of history alike.
The artist is unknown, but much as I like the challenge of finding the artist for unattributed paintings, I think I'll pass... These are expected to fetch as much as $100,000. The same auction house, incidentally, is also offering Hitler's desk set, used to sign the Munich Pact. Could there be a gloomier relic of history?
Jewish Polish painting restituted
July 27 2011
Picture: Auktionshaus Aldag
Here's a rare survival: Jewish Woman Selling Oranges was painted in Warsaw in 1880/1 by the Polish artist Aleksander Gierymski. The picture belonged to the Polish National Museum, but went missing during the war. It surfaced last year at a German auction, and has now been restituted. Old Warsaw can be seen in the background.
New acquisitions for the National Trust
July 27 2011
Picture: Sotheby's
Colin Gleadell in the Telegraph has news of two enticing acquisitions by the National Trust. The first is for Montacute House, a fine portrait of James I by John de Critz, bought in the recent Old Master sale at Sotheby's for £199.250.
In the same sale, the Trust also bought the above full-length, for £157,250. Sotheby's had identified her as 'possibly Lady Anne Cecil' (c.1603-1676), and attributed it to Robert Peake. The Trust, however, believe she is Vere Egerton, the grand-daughter of Lord Chancellor Egerton, Lord Brackley, and they have an early inventory reference to prove it. This painting will now be hung at Dunham Massey. (I don't personally see that it is by Peake - it's a little too sophisticated for him. Is it by someone nearer to van Somer?)
It's great news that the Trust is able to buy quality pictures like this.
Oddly enough, this is the second newly identified portrait of Vere Egerton to surface recently. In 2008 we (Philip Mould Ltd) bought the below portrait of three unidentified girls at Christie's. Subsequent research proved that the girls were three grandaughters of Lord Chancellor Egerton, thanks to the discovery of an early 19th Century sale reference. The ages insribed above the sitters' heads also matched the dates of the three Egerton sisters, Elizabeth, Vere and Mary. Vere is on the left.
Freud - the Studio Sale?
July 25 2011
Pure speculation, but if there is to be a Freud studio sale, it will surely be an epic. Are Sotheby's and Christie's already scrambling for the honours? Or was it all arranged a long time ago? Will Sotheby's' accidental shredding of a Freud drawing in 2000 count against them?
'Leonardo' drawing case struck out
July 25 2011
The US Appeals court has thrown out a case against Christie's brought by the consignor of the above drawing. It was catalogued as 19th Century German School in a sale in 1998, but some scholars now say it is by Leonardo. Full details in the ATG here.
Young Tom?
July 20 2011
Picture: Keys Auctioneers
This curious drawing came up for auction last week in Norfolk. It was catalogued as 'attributed to Gainsborough'. It's a self-portrait, and relates to a larger painting of the 1750s in a private collection. It made a miserly £3,500.
If it is indeed by the young Tom, it is obviously worth a great deal more than that. Personally I thought it had an excellent chance of being 'right', and we had established some very compelling evidence to suggest that it was. But a well known Gainsborough author had already turned it down, so, sadly, for as long as that person holds sway it as good as worthless. It's an interesting example of the power of a single 'expert'. The drawing has been rather rubbed, so looks weaker than it once was.
Earl's row over family pictures
July 15 2011
In last week's Sotheby's Old Master Sales, there were a number of fine pictures from the Savernake Estate (above), home to the Earls of Cardigan. But they were suddenly withdrawn at the last minute.
Today, the Daily Mail reports just why: the Earl of Cardigan had appealed to the Court of Appeal to stop the sale. The pictures had been consigned to sale by the trustees of his estate, which is apparently deep in debt. There will be a further hearing to decide what happens next.
It always disappoints me to see family collections being broken up. Sometimes it is not the choice of the family, but of the trustees of the collections. Such trusts are usually set up to avoid death duties, and at first the trustees may be close friends of the family not minded to rock the boat. However, over time, the trustees become increasingly professional and distant from the family. They see ancestral portraits as nothing more than assets gathering dust. So they are sold. Then the empty house, denuded of character, staggers on for a few more years until that too is sold. It's all rather unromantic, don't you think? I hope the Earl wins.
Bolton Council's loony de-accessioning
July 14 2011
Picture: BBC
Bolton Council has been selling off a series of works from their museum to try and raise £500,000 for a new storage facility for the rest of their collection. The picture above, J E Millais' Somnambulist, was supposed to be the big gun of the disposal, with an estimate of £70,000-£100,000. But it only just sold at £74,400, including buyer's premium. This means that the bidding didn't make it to the lower estimate.
The Independent reports that it sold to an American private collector, and will now leave the country. So that's Bargain Hunting Foreign Collectors 1 - Guardians of our Cultural Heritage 0.
As I've said before, I have no problem with well-managed deaccessioning, if it raises funds for worthwhile projects. But real questions have to be asked as to whether Bolton Council have made the correct decisions when it comes to placing their works on the market. The Millais was one of 36 works being sold. A Picasso lithograph failed to sell last week at £10,000.
All the sales were made by Bonhams. Bonhams can sometimes get excellent prices - but should all the pictures have been consigned to one auction house? Or could certain pictures have been better placed with different auctioneers at different dates? Might the Millais have done better if offered at Christie's or Sotheby's in their major sales in the winter?
There is a real lack of transparency when it comes to deaccessioning, and this risks undermining the whole process. As I have suggested before, we need to have some sort of structure to help manage the process. The Museums Association has now been contacted by another council with regard to a major disposal. And there will be many others...
Thin end of the wedge
July 12 2011
Here's a bonkers de-accessioning story from the US, of the type that make people fear de-accessioning here in the UK:
The Port Huron Museum is asking the city council permission to sell four paintings by 19th-century French artists to raise money for operating costs.
Susan Bennett, the museum's director of administration and community relations, said the paintings range in value from about $4,000 to up to $50,000.
The paintings are "Peasant Girl Herding Ducks" by Jean Francois Millet; "Tree Trunks of a Forest" by Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet; "Landscape with Water" by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot; and "Woodland Scene" by Narcisse Virgilio Díaz de la Peña.
Of course, it's always wrong to flog a collection to pay for operating costs. But what I want to know is, where can I buy these ridiculously cheap pictures?
Old Master Sale results
July 11 2011
Christie's just shade it this time round, £49.9m vs Sotheby's £47.6m.
Sleeper alert?
July 8 2011
Picture: Sotheby's
This picture sold yesterday for £718,850 (inc. premium), against an estimate of just £15-20,000. It was catalogued as 'Studio of Gaspar van Wittel (called Vanvitelli)', but evidently two or more people thought it was better than that...
The record for a van Wittel/Vanvitelli is £2m in 2003. A similar scene to the picture sold yesterday made £827k in 1995 at Christie's New York (image below).
De Vries sculpture withdrawn from Christie's sale
July 8 2011
Picture: Christie's
Bit of a scandal at Christie's this week over the auction of a £5-8m sculpture by Adrian de Vries. The statue, A Bronze Mythological Figure Supporting the Globe, came from an Austrian private collection, and was to be the centrepiece of 'The Exceptional Sale' yesterday. But it was withdrawn at the last moment.
There appear to have been serious errors with the export procedures from Austria, and at the last moment Austrian cultural officials demanded the sculpture's repatriation.
The only stories about the saga so far are in German, so I don't want to risk getting any details wrong (or be sued). But it doesn't look good at the moment for the auction house. Der Standard describes it as 'a bitter defeat' ('Eine bittere Niederlage fur das Expertenteam'.
The sculpture has disappeared from the Christie's online catalogue, but you can see it on Google's cached page here. More as I get it...
Losing your shirt on Lely
July 7 2011
Picture: Sotheby's
Well, that's a million quid down the toilet. Lely's full-length portrait of Nell Gwyn (above) failed to sell last night at Sotheby's, where it had an estimate of £600-800,000. It had previously sold for over £1.5m in 2007 at Christie's, where it had solicited just one offer.
The picture is perhaps a salutary lesson in buying at auction. Auction estimates do not necessarily reflect an item's value. Some auction houses like to place high estimates on a picture with the express intention of selling it only to a single bidder at the lower estimate. But if you ever find yourself the only bidder on a picture, be very careful...
Sotheby's set new record for Guardi
July 7 2011
As I hinted yesterday, the Guardi sold strongly at Sotheby's, selling for £26.7m (including premium). It tops Christie's Stubbs as the highest selling lot of the London Old Masters week.
I was way out on the Portrait of a Carmelite Monk, which sold at the lower estimate of £600,000 (making £713k all in). I thought it would do far better. It seems the picture suffered from over-speculation. The latest theory doing the rounds was that it was by Jacob Jordaens, which is a bonkers idea. The buyer, I think, has a bargain...
There were some perhaps suprising failures, such as this Santi di Tito portrait (est.£150-200k), and the Cranach the Elder portrait of Martin Luther (est.£150-200k). The latter had been shown in the catalogue 'stripped down', showing large losses in the background. Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea... Also buying-in was an early self-portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence (est.£80-120k). It had recently been included in the National Portrait Gallery's Lawrence exhibition.
It has been a patchy week at the sales. At the Christie's day sale yesterday the buy-in rate was almost 50%.
