Art Market Magazine - Visit zone-secure.net

"Portrait of Jacopo Boncompagni" by Scipione Pulzone,
known as Il Gaetano. This picture, highly influenced by
Raphael, fetched $7.58 M, tripling its estimate. The
series of works fetching over a million dollars was
rounded off by another "Madonna and Child", a panel
by Lucas Cranach II knocked down for $1.76 M. Also
noteworthy was the $854,500 garnered by a rarity, a
woodcut by Titian of "The Submersion of Pharaoh's
Army in the Red Sea": a huge image (112 x 221 cm)
requiring twelve wood blocks to print it. The success of
the sale inspired its promoters to announce the
staging of a similar one next year.
The masters of the past are as popular as they have
ever been, as witnessed at this Sotheby’s sale on 31
January which totalled $58.23 M, despite the failure to
sell off flagship lots like "Portrait of Mariano Goya" by
his grandfather Francisco: probably the victim of an
over-ambitious estimate ($6/8 M). Goya thus yielded
centre stage to Pompeo Batoni, who picked a wellknown
subject, "Susanna and the Elders", for a commission
from Count Harrach, whose descendents kept it in
the family until 1991. The chaste Suzanne clearly left
bidders no more indifferent than the old men, as she
sold for $11.39 M. A long way behind came two works
in a very different spirit: "Heidelberg with a Rainbow"
by J.M.W. Turner ($4.56 M) and "Christ Blessing" by
Hans Memling ($4.11 M). A little way below, at $3.83 M,
came Fragonard's "Le Triomphe de l’Aurore sur la Nuit",
a painting that had belonged to the Ephrussi, Sedelmeyer
and Coty collections in turn, while a "Saint
Ursula protecting the Eleven Thousand Virgins with
her cloak" by the Master of the Legend of Saint Barbara
went for $3.05 M. As we can see, irrespective of period
or school, Old Masters still have a speaking appeal to
present-day art lovers...
At first glance, it seemed that this Christie's sale
would come down to a duel between two ladies: the
4th Duchess of Marlborough by Gainsborough (pastel,
31 x 24 cm) against the Comtesse d’Agoult by Ingres
(pencil with white gouache highlights, 48 x 39 cm). But
this was not to reckon with Claude Lorrain, whose
splendid "Paysage boisé" (from the former Gaines
collection, dispersed by Sotheby’s in 1986) multiplied
AUCTION RESULTS INTERNATIONAL THE MAGAZINE
its estimate tenfold when it soared up to $6.13 M.
These fine ladies were thus overshadowed, but in the
purest respect for the aristocratic pecking order, the
Comtesse ($1.93 M for this drawing, already sold in
Paris in 1989 by Maitres Couturier and de Nicolay)
bowed to the English Duchess ($2.43 M). As can be
imagined, these three bids accounted for a sizeable
part of the final total for this sale: $16.54 M. However,
all the drawings worthy of interest were greeted with
due enthusiasm, irrespective of school or period.
Xavier Narbaïts
$842,500 Workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (Florence 1435- Venice
1488), "The Madonna and Child resting at a parapet", tempera on
panel, 61.3 x 44.5 cm. 29 and 30 January, Sotheby's.
N° 23 I GAZETTE DROUOT INTERNATIONAL
73