Old Master Paintings

Explore the highs and lows of December’s Old Master sales in London. With limited masterpieces on offer and a dwindling supply of top-tier works, the results reveal a strong demand for quality but a sharp decline in interest for third-rate paintings. Highlights include Sotheby’s £9.96M Botticelli Madonna and Christie’s £3.4M van Dyck oil sketch, while Bonhams saw success with Johan Zoffany’s rediscovered ‘fancy pictures’. Read on for insights into the state of the Old Master market and a preview of February’s promising New York sales.

This week’s female artist is the fascinating Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665). She was born in Bologna on January 8th 1638 to Margherita and Giovanni Andrea Sirani. Fortunately for her, her father Gian’Andrea Sirani was a favourite pupil of Guido Reni and took over his practice as teacher and master in the first Life School in Bologna. [...]

The Old Master market, judging by the London sales in early July, continues to be split between the desirable and the unloved. The Day Sales, for the “unloved” were very flat affairs. Christie’s managed a total of £3.489M for 170 lots, with 36 unsold – mostly sculptures and watercolours, which they now include with oil […]

Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807), who was a founder member of the Royal Academy and one of the most soughtafter portrait painters of her generation, is the subject of a major retrospective Exhibition at the Royal Academy, the first of its type in Britain in my lifetime. The press release from the R.A. describes her as “one […]

The December Old Master Sales were rather lacklustre with the three major London salerooms, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams reporting combined totals for their five sales of £55.8M, just less than December 2022’s feeble total of £56.3M. One can hardly blame consignors for not wishing to offer great paintings at auction in the current geo-political climate. […]

“A cold coming, we had of it, just the worst time of year for a journey and such a long journey”, is how T.S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’ begins. Semi-desert can be very cold on a clear night, and we know it was clear, because the wise men were following a star. No-one knows […]