There were also women looking from afar off by Vasili Dmitrievich Polenov
On Wednesday, March 29th, Bonhams New Bond Street location in London hosted its 19th Century and British Impressionist art sale, featuring seventy-three works by both British and Continental European painters (w/p = with buyer’s premium). What ended up being the sale’s star work was expected to be among the top lots, but Wednesday’s bidders brought it right to the top. It was a 1908 oil-on-canvas painting by the Russian artist Vasili Dmitrievich Polenov, with the very long title There were also women looking from afar off. If you’re unfamiliar with where the title comes from, you might not know that the work is a biblical scene. All the figures in the foreground have their backs turned to the viewer. The men and women are on the road looking off into the distance at a hill, where a group of people is gathered. The title of the painting comes from the Gospel according to Saint Mark, which describes several of Christ’s followers, including Mary Magdalene and Salome, watching from the walls of Jerusalem as soldiers escort Jesus to Calvary, the crucifixion site. The work is part of a series Polenov created called The Life of Christ, consisting of a cycle of twelve paintings. In preparation for the series, Polenov traveled to Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Palestine in the early 1880s, something many of his Orientalist contemporaries did as well, even if their subject matter was entirely different. Bonhams specialists expected the Polenov to bring in £700K at most, yet shot past expectations to reach £1.25M / $1.54M (or £1.54M / $1.9M w/p).
Sea Echoes by Frederic, Lord Leighton
Next was the Frederic, Lord Leighton portrait of a young woman entitled Sea Echoes. The title refers to the subject captured at half-length holding a seashell to her ear. The painting was likely created sometime in the early 1860s, with the same model appearing in several other Leighton works from the same period. Some have theorized that this model was one of Leighton‘s sisters, Alexandra or Augusta. Sea Echoes is actually one of Leighton’s earliest works that evokes sound to determine mood. He would utilize this technique many more times throughout the 1860s, with both natural noise and music. Estimated to sell for between £250K and £350K, Sea Echoes fell nicely within the estimated range at £320K / $394.6K (or £403.5K / $497.5K w/p).
Forget-Me-Not by Sir John Everett Millais
Like Sea Echoes, the third place lot is a nineteenth-century British portrait, this time by one of Leighton’s contemporaries, Sir John Everett Millais. Entitled Forget-Me-Not, most specialists have determined the work’s subject to be the artist’s daughter Effie James. Millais’s daughter appears in a costume resembling an almost Victorianized version of dresses found in late eighteenth-century portraiture. The background is made up of muted greens and browns but contains several floral features, indicating that the subject is likely sitting in a garden, where Effie had been picking the forget-me-nots seen in her hand. The Millais portrait sold within its £200K to £300K estimate, with a hammer coming down at £240K / $295.9K (or £302.7K / $373.3K w/p).
In total, twenty-three of the seventy-three lots available sold within the estimate range, giving Bonhams specialists a 32% accuracy rate. Eight lots (11%) sold below estimate, while nineteen lots (26%) sold above. Unfortunately, twenty-three lots (32%) went unsold, and that number is one of the main reasons why the sale did not do well. The entire sale made £2.89M / $3.57M, falling a little short of the £3.15M minimum total estimate. While the number of lots bought-in was troubling, it was actually a single lot that more or less determined the auction's success or failure. The Ionian Dancing Girl by John William Godward shows a Greek girl in a sheer dress with flowers in her hair. Godward is considered one of the great nineteenth-century British classicists. Only Lawrence Alma-Tadema was his rival in capturing the classical world, which in turn has greatly influenced our modern perceptions of the ancient Mediterranean. It’s such a pity, therefore, that the bidding stalled at £750K, just shy of Bonhams' £800K minimum estimate where the reserve was likely set. The sale as a whole falling short of its minimum total estimate by about £250K means the auction would have done slightly better had just one more bid come through to sell the painting for £800K.
Bonhams London 19th Century Sale
There were also women looking from afar off by Vasili Dmitrievich Polenov
On Wednesday, March 29th, Bonhams New Bond Street location in London hosted its 19th Century and British Impressionist art sale, featuring seventy-three works by both British and Continental European painters (w/p = with buyer’s premium). What ended up being the sale’s star work was expected to be among the top lots, but Wednesday’s bidders brought it right to the top. It was a 1908 oil-on-canvas painting by the Russian artist Vasili Dmitrievich Polenov, with the very long title There were also women looking from afar off. If you’re unfamiliar with where the title comes from, you might not know that the work is a biblical scene. All the figures in the foreground have their backs turned to the viewer. The men and women are on the road looking off into the distance at a hill, where a group of people is gathered. The title of the painting comes from the Gospel according to Saint Mark, which describes several of Christ’s followers, including Mary Magdalene and Salome, watching from the walls of Jerusalem as soldiers escort Jesus to Calvary, the crucifixion site. The work is part of a series Polenov created called The Life of Christ, consisting of a cycle of twelve paintings. In preparation for the series, Polenov traveled to Egypt, Greece, Syria, and Palestine in the early 1880s, something many of his Orientalist contemporaries did as well, even if their subject matter was entirely different. Bonhams specialists expected the Polenov to bring in £700K at most, yet shot past expectations to reach £1.25M / $1.54M (or £1.54M / $1.9M w/p).
Sea Echoes by Frederic, Lord Leighton
Next was the Frederic, Lord Leighton portrait of a young woman entitled Sea Echoes. The title refers to the subject captured at half-length holding a seashell to her ear. The painting was likely created sometime in the early 1860s, with the same model appearing in several other Leighton works from the same period. Some have theorized that this model was one of Leighton‘s sisters, Alexandra or Augusta. Sea Echoes is actually one of Leighton’s earliest works that evokes sound to determine mood. He would utilize this technique many more times throughout the 1860s, with both natural noise and music. Estimated to sell for between £250K and £350K, Sea Echoes fell nicely within the estimated range at £320K / $394.6K (or £403.5K / $497.5K w/p).
Forget-Me-Not by Sir John Everett Millais
Like Sea Echoes, the third place lot is a nineteenth-century British portrait, this time by one of Leighton’s contemporaries, Sir John Everett Millais. Entitled Forget-Me-Not, most specialists have determined the work’s subject to be the artist’s daughter Effie James. Millais’s daughter appears in a costume resembling an almost Victorianized version of dresses found in late eighteenth-century portraiture. The background is made up of muted greens and browns but contains several floral features, indicating that the subject is likely sitting in a garden, where Effie had been picking the forget-me-nots seen in her hand. The Millais portrait sold within its £200K to £300K estimate, with a hammer coming down at £240K / $295.9K (or £302.7K / $373.3K w/p).
In total, twenty-three of the seventy-three lots available sold within the estimate range, giving Bonhams specialists a 32% accuracy rate. Eight lots (11%) sold below estimate, while nineteen lots (26%) sold above. Unfortunately, twenty-three lots (32%) went unsold, and that number is one of the main reasons why the sale did not do well. The entire sale made £2.89M / $3.57M, falling a little short of the £3.15M minimum total estimate. While the number of lots bought-in was troubling, it was actually a single lot that more or less determined the auction's success or failure. The Ionian Dancing Girl by John William Godward shows a Greek girl in a sheer dress with flowers in her hair. Godward is considered one of the great nineteenth-century British classicists. Only Lawrence Alma-Tadema was his rival in capturing the classical world, which in turn has greatly influenced our modern perceptions of the ancient Mediterranean. It’s such a pity, therefore, that the bidding stalled at £750K, just shy of Bonhams' £800K minimum estimate where the reserve was likely set. The sale as a whole falling short of its minimum total estimate by about £250K means the auction would have done slightly better had just one more bid come through to sell the painting for £800K.