The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day by Canaletto
On Tuesday, July 1st, the major London auction houses started their Classics Week with the Old Masters evening sale at Christie’s. Industry publications have been discussing the sale for months, particularly due to an eighteenth-century Venetian cityscape by the acclaimed Italian painter Giovanni Antonio Canal, popularly known as Canaletto.
Canaletto’s work is incredibly popular at auction, with some of the larger examples fetching millions. The work offered at Christie’s was estimated to sell for around £20 million. The reason for the exorbitant price is not only due to the artist and the subject (The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day) but also the provenance. The painting’s first recorded owner was Sir Robert Walpole, a prominent Whig Party politician who served as the United Kingdom’s First Lord of the Treasury. His influence over policy and the leadership of his party have led historians to refer to him as the country’s first Prime Minister. The painting was most likely created sometime in the 1730s, but it would not come into the Prime Minister’s possession until the 1750s when he displayed it at his residence at 10 Downing Street. The painting remained in the family’s collection until 1930, which Christie’s attributes as one of the reasons why the work is in such good condition. The house specialists say that this is the artist’s earliest known representation of this particular subject. The Bucintoro was the barge used by the Doge, the elected leader of the Republic of Venice chosen from among the city’s powerful mercantile families. Every year on the Feast of the Ascension, celebrated exactly thirty-nine days after Easter, the Doge would sail on the Bucintoro out of the Venetian Lagoon and into the Adriatic Sea. There, he would perform a ceremony called the sposalizio del mare, or the marriage of the sea, throwing a gold ring into the water to symbolize Venice’s connection to, reliance on, and dominance over the ocean. The Doge would perform the ceremony every year until 1798. The city revived the ceremony in 1965, which is now conducted annually by the mayor. The example offered at Christie’s on Tuesday is, according to the house specialists, “a supreme example of Canaletto’s early maturity.” The painting ended up surpassing the expectations of Christie’s experts, climbing above its estimate and hammering at £27.5 million / $37.8 million (or £31.9 million / $43.9 million w/p). With that price, it greatly superseded the Grand Canal cityscape sold at Sotheby’s in 2005 for £18.6 million w/p, making it the most expensive work by the artist ever sold at auction.
A pie on a pewter plate, a partially peeled lemon, etc. by Jan Davidsz. de Heem
There were several multimillion-dollar lots available at Christie’s that day. Far behind the Canaletto but still in second place was a 1649 still-life painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan Davidsz. de Heem. In contrast to other examples of still-life paintings from the period, De Heem presents an incredibly vibrant work, showcasing a sumptuous feast laid out on a table. While backgrounds in this period are often just gray or beige walls, the artist gives us a more luxurious work by adding curtains in the background and drapes blanketing the table. Among the objects depicted are pewter and silver cups and pitchers, a blue and white Chinese porcelain bowl, oysters and nuts, lobsters, shrimp, and crayfish, a basket of fruit, and a partially eaten pie with its contents exposed to the viewer. Considering the vibrant colors and excellent condition, Christie’s specialists assigned an estimate range of £3 million to £5 million. The enthusiasm for the painting was rather lackluster, garnering a few bids to bring it up to the minimum estimate before the auctioneer, Henry Pettifer, brought the hammer down at £3 million / $4.1 million (or £3.67 million / $5 million w/p). This price made the painting the fourth most-expensive painting by Jan de Heem to ever sell at auction, and the second most expensive from just this year, with a magnificent floral still-life selling at Sotheby’s New York this past May for $8.8 million w/p as part of the Saunders Collection.
Portrait of a Nobleman by Titian
And finally, later on in the sale was Titian’s Portrait of a Nobleman, which was only rediscovered after its appearance at auction in 1976. The painting’s subject has not yet been identified, but the ship seen out on the open ocean through the background window may indicate that the sitter comes from a wealthy background involved in trade or commerce. The subject also wears a ring and holds a kerchief in his left hand, which some specialists interpret as a sign of mourning for a wife or other romantic interest. The dating of the painting is still up for debate, but many scholars have given a broad guess to the 1540s or 1550s. Despite the quality and the authorship, interest in the Titian was not as strong as expected. With the same estimate range as the De Heem, the Titian portrait sold for £2.8 million / $3.8 million (or £3.4 million / $4.7 million w/p).
In the end, the sale did exceptionally well, with seventeen of the thirty-nine available lots selling within their estimates, giving Christie use a 44% accuracy rate. An additional eleven lots (28%) sold below, while six lots (15%) sold above. With five lots unsold, the auction itself achieved a sell-through rate of 87%. Normally, with Old Masters sales, even the major auction houses are lucky if the final price meets the minimum total estimate. On Tuesday evening, however, the sale achieved a total hammer amount of £46.2 million (or $63.5 million), slightly short of the £47.98 million high estimate. Even if the Canaletto had sold at its initial estimate of £20 million, the auction as a whole would have still reached its total estimate range.
Classics Week: Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale
The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day by Canaletto
On Tuesday, July 1st, the major London auction houses started their Classics Week with the Old Masters evening sale at Christie’s. Industry publications have been discussing the sale for months, particularly due to an eighteenth-century Venetian cityscape by the acclaimed Italian painter Giovanni Antonio Canal, popularly known as Canaletto.
Canaletto’s work is incredibly popular at auction, with some of the larger examples fetching millions. The work offered at Christie’s was estimated to sell for around £20 million. The reason for the exorbitant price is not only due to the artist and the subject (The Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day) but also the provenance. The painting’s first recorded owner was Sir Robert Walpole, a prominent Whig Party politician who served as the United Kingdom’s First Lord of the Treasury. His influence over policy and the leadership of his party have led historians to refer to him as the country’s first Prime Minister. The painting was most likely created sometime in the 1730s, but it would not come into the Prime Minister’s possession until the 1750s when he displayed it at his residence at 10 Downing Street. The painting remained in the family’s collection until 1930, which Christie’s attributes as one of the reasons why the work is in such good condition. The house specialists say that this is the artist’s earliest known representation of this particular subject. The Bucintoro was the barge used by the Doge, the elected leader of the Republic of Venice chosen from among the city’s powerful mercantile families. Every year on the Feast of the Ascension, celebrated exactly thirty-nine days after Easter, the Doge would sail on the Bucintoro out of the Venetian Lagoon and into the Adriatic Sea. There, he would perform a ceremony called the sposalizio del mare, or the marriage of the sea, throwing a gold ring into the water to symbolize Venice’s connection to, reliance on, and dominance over the ocean. The Doge would perform the ceremony every year until 1798. The city revived the ceremony in 1965, which is now conducted annually by the mayor. The example offered at Christie’s on Tuesday is, according to the house specialists, “a supreme example of Canaletto’s early maturity.” The painting ended up surpassing the expectations of Christie’s experts, climbing above its estimate and hammering at £27.5 million / $37.8 million (or £31.9 million / $43.9 million w/p). With that price, it greatly superseded the Grand Canal cityscape sold at Sotheby’s in 2005 for £18.6 million w/p, making it the most expensive work by the artist ever sold at auction.
A pie on a pewter plate, a partially peeled lemon, etc. by Jan Davidsz. de Heem
There were several multimillion-dollar lots available at Christie’s that day. Far behind the Canaletto but still in second place was a 1649 still-life painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan Davidsz. de Heem. In contrast to other examples of still-life paintings from the period, De Heem presents an incredibly vibrant work, showcasing a sumptuous feast laid out on a table. While backgrounds in this period are often just gray or beige walls, the artist gives us a more luxurious work by adding curtains in the background and drapes blanketing the table. Among the objects depicted are pewter and silver cups and pitchers, a blue and white Chinese porcelain bowl, oysters and nuts, lobsters, shrimp, and crayfish, a basket of fruit, and a partially eaten pie with its contents exposed to the viewer. Considering the vibrant colors and excellent condition, Christie’s specialists assigned an estimate range of £3 million to £5 million. The enthusiasm for the painting was rather lackluster, garnering a few bids to bring it up to the minimum estimate before the auctioneer, Henry Pettifer, brought the hammer down at £3 million / $4.1 million (or £3.67 million / $5 million w/p). This price made the painting the fourth most-expensive painting by Jan de Heem to ever sell at auction, and the second most expensive from just this year, with a magnificent floral still-life selling at Sotheby’s New York this past May for $8.8 million w/p as part of the Saunders Collection.
Portrait of a Nobleman by Titian
And finally, later on in the sale was Titian’s Portrait of a Nobleman, which was only rediscovered after its appearance at auction in 1976. The painting’s subject has not yet been identified, but the ship seen out on the open ocean through the background window may indicate that the sitter comes from a wealthy background involved in trade or commerce. The subject also wears a ring and holds a kerchief in his left hand, which some specialists interpret as a sign of mourning for a wife or other romantic interest. The dating of the painting is still up for debate, but many scholars have given a broad guess to the 1540s or 1550s. Despite the quality and the authorship, interest in the Titian was not as strong as expected. With the same estimate range as the De Heem, the Titian portrait sold for £2.8 million / $3.8 million (or £3.4 million / $4.7 million w/p).
In the end, the sale did exceptionally well, with seventeen of the thirty-nine available lots selling within their estimates, giving Christie use a 44% accuracy rate. An additional eleven lots (28%) sold below, while six lots (15%) sold above. With five lots unsold, the auction itself achieved a sell-through rate of 87%. Normally, with Old Masters sales, even the major auction houses are lucky if the final price meets the minimum total estimate. On Tuesday evening, however, the sale achieved a total hammer amount of £46.2 million (or $63.5 million), slightly short of the £47.98 million high estimate. Even if the Canaletto had sold at its initial estimate of £20 million, the auction as a whole would have still reached its total estimate range.