An Andalusian Horse by Sir Anthony van Dyck
After the week of blockbuster end-of-year sales in New York, many of the main auction houses will host their Old Masters and nineteenth-century sales. Christie’s kicked things off with their Tuesday evening sale in London, which, by Old Masters standards, surpassed everyone’s expectations.
The predicted top lots performed more or less as expected. The star of the show on Tuesday was Sir Anthony van Dyck’s An Andalusian Horse, a large painting of a white horse with a red saddle blanket. It is one of his early paintings, created at age 22, shortly before he would leave his home city of Antwerp for the first time to visit London. Christie’s specialists called the work “the artist’s first independent grand-scale depiction of a horse”. Van Dyck likely created it as a study for an eventual equestrian portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, which now hangs in the Uffizi Gallery. While that itself would make a fine painting, the Van Dyck is two paintings in one. On the other side of the canvas, Van Dyke made a loose preparatory drawing for a wooded landscape. The painting last sold at Christie’s in 2000 for £773.8K w/p. Christie’s expected it would do far better this time around, assigning it a £2 million to £3 million estimate. The hammer came down within that estimate at £2.8 million / $3.5 million (or £3.4 million / $4.3 million w/p).
Guilty Punchinello by Giambattista Tiepolo
Next up was Giambattista Tiepolo’s Guilty Punchinello, one of only two paintings by the artist to feature the popular European commedia dell’arte stock character. Punchinello is more often associated with the work of the artist’s son, Gian Domenico Tiepolo. The other painting featuring Punchinello, which currently belongs to the collection at Leeds Castle, shows the same figures, a group of men in Punchinello costumes, cooking something in a pot and getting ready to eat. The painting offered at Christie’s shows the figures at a later time, where they are shaming and mocking one of their colleagues for stealing and eating all the food. Its appearance at Christie’s on Tuesday marked the first time since 1934 that the painting had become available on the market. For all this time, it has been in the collection of the Mortier family, the descendants of one of Napoleon’s generals. With a pre-sale estimate of £1 million to £1.5 million, the Tiepolo eventually achieved £2 million / $2.5 million (or £2.4 million / $3.1 million w/p). Following the sale’s conclusion, the Louvre was revealed as the painting’s buyer.
And then, finally, in third place was Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Sermon of Saint John the Baptist. It is one of the artist’s most prominent religious paintings, yet it is one of the least studied since, until now, it has been in the same private collection since the mid-nineteenth century. Brueghel has recreated a biblical story with the aesthetics of the sixteenth-century Netherlands. Some scholars believe it may also provide commentary on the religious wars ravaging Europe at the time. Others think that the scene may reference the way protestants had to meet and worship in secret thanks to anti-Protestant policies enacted by the Habsburgs. Christie’s predicted the Brueghel to sell for anywhere between £800K and £1.2 million, given the size and rarity of the painting. It slightly exceeded these estimates, selling for £1.3 million / $1.65 million (or £1.6 million / $2 million w/p).
Sermon of Saint John the Baptist by Pieter Brueghel the Younger
But the sale did not do well just from the top lots alone. While a good portion of the auction went unsold, several other lots sold far beyond their estimate, which helped balance things out. In particular, a still life by the Flemish painter Clara Peeters did exceptionally well. Peeters was one of the few professional female artists working during the first half of the Dutch Golden Age. The work offered at Christie’s was a simple still life featuring cheese, bread, pretzels, and wine, estimated to sell for no more than £150K. Given the contemporary reappraisal of female artists and artists of color, a greater interest in the works of painters like Peeters seems not terribly surprising. However, the painting exceeded its high estimate by a factor of 3.4, hammering at £520K / $660.3K (or £655.2K / $831.9K w/p). The Peeters was one of the nine lots out of twenty-six (35%) that sold over their estimates. Five lots (19%) each sold within and below their estimates. This leaves seven (27%) that went unsold. Despite the substantial amount of lots bought in, the works that sold over estimate were sufficient to not only bring the total within Christie’s pre-sale estimate but surpass it. The house specialists predicted the twenty-six available lots to bring in anywhere between £7.4 million and £10.9 million. Paintings towards the end of the sale, like the Tiepolo and Bathsheba by Francesco Hayez, pushed the auction over the top, with £11 million (£13.99 million w/p) brought in for Christie’s.
Christie’s London Old Masters
An Andalusian Horse by Sir Anthony van Dyck
After the week of blockbuster end-of-year sales in New York, many of the main auction houses will host their Old Masters and nineteenth-century sales. Christie’s kicked things off with their Tuesday evening sale in London, which, by Old Masters standards, surpassed everyone’s expectations.
The predicted top lots performed more or less as expected. The star of the show on Tuesday was Sir Anthony van Dyck’s An Andalusian Horse, a large painting of a white horse with a red saddle blanket. It is one of his early paintings, created at age 22, shortly before he would leave his home city of Antwerp for the first time to visit London. Christie’s specialists called the work “the artist’s first independent grand-scale depiction of a horse”. Van Dyck likely created it as a study for an eventual equestrian portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, which now hangs in the Uffizi Gallery. While that itself would make a fine painting, the Van Dyck is two paintings in one. On the other side of the canvas, Van Dyke made a loose preparatory drawing for a wooded landscape. The painting last sold at Christie’s in 2000 for £773.8K w/p. Christie’s expected it would do far better this time around, assigning it a £2 million to £3 million estimate. The hammer came down within that estimate at £2.8 million / $3.5 million (or £3.4 million / $4.3 million w/p).
Guilty Punchinello by Giambattista Tiepolo
Next up was Giambattista Tiepolo’s Guilty Punchinello, one of only two paintings by the artist to feature the popular European commedia dell’arte stock character. Punchinello is more often associated with the work of the artist’s son, Gian Domenico Tiepolo. The other painting featuring Punchinello, which currently belongs to the collection at Leeds Castle, shows the same figures, a group of men in Punchinello costumes, cooking something in a pot and getting ready to eat. The painting offered at Christie’s shows the figures at a later time, where they are shaming and mocking one of their colleagues for stealing and eating all the food. Its appearance at Christie’s on Tuesday marked the first time since 1934 that the painting had become available on the market. For all this time, it has been in the collection of the Mortier family, the descendants of one of Napoleon’s generals. With a pre-sale estimate of £1 million to £1.5 million, the Tiepolo eventually achieved £2 million / $2.5 million (or £2.4 million / $3.1 million w/p). Following the sale’s conclusion, the Louvre was revealed as the painting’s buyer.
And then, finally, in third place was Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s Sermon of Saint John the Baptist. It is one of the artist’s most prominent religious paintings, yet it is one of the least studied since, until now, it has been in the same private collection since the mid-nineteenth century. Brueghel has recreated a biblical story with the aesthetics of the sixteenth-century Netherlands. Some scholars believe it may also provide commentary on the religious wars ravaging Europe at the time. Others think that the scene may reference the way protestants had to meet and worship in secret thanks to anti-Protestant policies enacted by the Habsburgs. Christie’s predicted the Brueghel to sell for anywhere between £800K and £1.2 million, given the size and rarity of the painting. It slightly exceeded these estimates, selling for £1.3 million / $1.65 million (or £1.6 million / $2 million w/p).
Sermon of Saint John the Baptist by Pieter Brueghel the Younger
But the sale did not do well just from the top lots alone. While a good portion of the auction went unsold, several other lots sold far beyond their estimate, which helped balance things out. In particular, a still life by the Flemish painter Clara Peeters did exceptionally well. Peeters was one of the few professional female artists working during the first half of the Dutch Golden Age. The work offered at Christie’s was a simple still life featuring cheese, bread, pretzels, and wine, estimated to sell for no more than £150K. Given the contemporary reappraisal of female artists and artists of color, a greater interest in the works of painters like Peeters seems not terribly surprising. However, the painting exceeded its high estimate by a factor of 3.4, hammering at £520K / $660.3K (or £655.2K / $831.9K w/p). The Peeters was one of the nine lots out of twenty-six (35%) that sold over their estimates. Five lots (19%) each sold within and below their estimates. This leaves seven (27%) that went unsold. Despite the substantial amount of lots bought in, the works that sold over estimate were sufficient to not only bring the total within Christie’s pre-sale estimate but surpass it. The house specialists predicted the twenty-six available lots to bring in anywhere between £7.4 million and £10.9 million. Paintings towards the end of the sale, like the Tiepolo and Bathsheba by Francesco Hayez, pushed the auction over the top, with £11 million (£13.99 million w/p) brought in for Christie’s.