NFT’s are the latest trend in the art world, but many people do not understand them.
Lowry’s painting, ‘Going to the Match’ from 1953 depicts a bustling throng of football fans gathered at the former home of Bolton Wanderers. It won Lowry first prize in a 1953 exhibition, which was sponsored by The Football Association.
Jonathan Horwich with L.S Lowry’s ‘Going to the match’.
The painting, last came up for auction in December 1999, just days away from the new millennium and the dawn of the new technology that has changed all our lives and turbo charged the Art and Auction world.
The estimate back then was £700-900,000 which was itself a world record estimate and the final price of £1.9 million was also a new record which stood for almost 10 years! ‘Going to the Match’ was bought by Graham Taylor, bidding via phone, on behalf of the Professional Footballers Association, (PFA) the footballer’s Trade Union.
From the auction it went on long term loan to the Lowry in Salford, where until April this year it was on permanent display to the public.
Last night in London, 22 years on, it was back on the auction block, again with a world record estimate of £5-8 million and after a fierce auction battle it deservedly made a new world auction record price of £7.8, far exceeding the previous record for a Lowry of £5.6 million set in 2011.
The PFA recently transferred ownership of the picture to their charitable arm, the Players Foundation so that now all the sale proceeds
will go towards helping those in need. Even better, thanks to the generosity of the Law Family charitable trust run by Andrew and Zoe Law, the Lowry Gallery in Salford were able to bid successfully at the auction and so now they will soon have their visitor’s favourite Lowry picture back again on the wall in Salford Quays so we can all enjoy it now and into the future.
Throughout history the Crown has used portraiture to define and promote its official image – the image which each successive monarch chooses to portray itself to the Nation. These images, whether they show the monarch as a great head of State, or as a triumphant military leader or even as the embodiment of middle-class values, have eventually come to define the visual culture of each passing generation.
With 70 years on the Throne, Queen Elizabeth II is the United Kingdom’s longest-reigning monarch, surpassing even her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, who reigned for 63 years. Throughout her long reign Queen Elizabeth II has overseen the greatest political and social changes this county has ever seen. She was born into a country which still sat at the centre of a global empire, and during her reign she oversaw the evolution of the Commonwealth of Nations.
The United Kingdom has emerged from a post Edwardian society to a vibrant, modern, multi-culture one. All this in one lifetime.
From Cecil Beaton to Pietro Annigoni, from Andy Warhol to Lucian Freud, and more recently Jamie Reid to Chris Levine – Britain’s longest reigning monarch has been painted by some of the greatest artists of her time, with each image recording the ever-evolving relationship between the Queen and her people. But what is unique about the Queen’s portraits in the history of royal portraiture, is that her face has been appropriated to become an icon of popular culture. She is both a Queen, a Pop icon and a defining symbol of punk subversiveness!
Over her long life and reign, Queen Elizabeth II became the most photographed and depicted person in Human history, and her image has become embedded in the world’s cultural consciousness. Never in the history of Human history has one person been portrayed so.
Cecil Beaton
The fashion designer, Cecil Beaton, was unusually chosen to take the official coronation portrait of Queen Elizabeth on June 2, 1954. The image he created came to define the first decade of the Queen’s reign and symbolised the new Elizabethan age she heralded in. At its heart, the image is fundamentally rooted in the tradition of Royal portraiture, with the Queen shown in all the majesty of her Coronation robes – with the Imperial State Crown on her head and the orb and sceptre in her hands. Beaton manages to capture the Queen as both intensely royal but also yet somewhat vulnerable due to her youth.
Interestingly, whilst this is an intensely traditional image, the medium of photography with which it was created, together with Beaton’s visual trickery also makes it a surprisingly modern one. Although the image appears at first glance to be set in Westminster Abbey, the photographer actually employed a theatrical backdrop for the photo, which was taken in a drawing room at Buckingham Palace.
Pietro Annigoni
In 1954, two years after her coronation, the Italian artist Pietro Annigoni painted the first of his two famous portraits of the Queen. Commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers in London, the painting is universally considered the most beautiful ever painted of her and is the queen’s known favourite. The artist shows the beautiful young queen in the magnificent robes of the ancient Order of the Garter and set within a beautiful Italianate landscape worthy of any Renaissance master. The resulting image is a supremely elegant and glamorous one, which has appeared on stamps and currency in British dependencies across the world.
In 1969, at the request of the Queen, the National Portrait Gallery in London, commissioned Annigoni to paint her portrait again. This time, however, the artists decided not to paint her as a glamorous young monarch, but rather as a much more remote Regal figure, silhouette starkly against an almost abstracted background. As the artist said himself, “I did not want to paint her as a film star, I saw her as a monarch, alone in the problems of her responsibility,” said the artist of the striking difference.
Jamie Reid
The 1970s saw Punk Rock explode onto the British scene. Anti-establishment and anarchic, Punk challenged everything the previous generation held dear, and its influence was truly global. How ironic then, that one of Punk’s greatest images is Jamie Reid’s famous Sex Pistol’s album cover showing the Queen superimposed across the Union Jack! The figure head of the Establishment being used to subvert itself. To this day, it is one of the most influential images of the Queen of all time.
Andy Warhol
In 1985, the king of Pop Art Andy Warhol, produced his Reigning Queen’s portfolio of prints – a set of 16 portraits of the world’s four reigning Queens – Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, Queen Ntombi Twala of Swaziland and of course, our Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Warhol chose to depict these female monarchs, as powerful matriarchs – queens who ruled in their own right and were not queens through marriage. These portraits represent independent female authority, a different view on femininity in comparison to Warhol’s portraits of the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Billy Boy.
Lucien Freud
In 2001 one of Britain’s greatest living painters, Lucien Freud, painted his tiny but highly controversial portraits of the Queen. Originally meant to depict the Queen informally without a crown or tiara, Freud had to subsequently expand the canvas by 3.5cm when he decided to include the 1820 Diamond Diadem! Without doubt the most controversial of all the Queen’s portraits, this tiny work has divided audiences since it was first exhibited. Whilst certainly not one of her Majesty’s most flattering portraits, the way that Freud has disregarded the entire tradition of Royal portraits is certainly unique.
Alison Jackson
Whatever next – the Queen taking selfies?! Well not quite! This faux royal family selfie is the work of Alison Jackson, a British photographer who has made her reputation creating convincing personal photos of intimate moments experienced by British celebrities using look alike actors. Alison Jackson’s genius lies in her ability to cast convincing doppelganger actors in the role of her famous sitters in entirely convincing, yet fake situations. One can only guess that Her Majesty must get a kick out of such fun…..the Queen as a social media savvy influencer monarch!
Chris Levine
In 2004, British artist Chris Levine created what can only be described as a modern classic when he produced his, Lightness of Being portrait of the Queen. The work which he produced in various formats, shows the Queen beautifully dressed in white fur and pearls, wearing the 1820 Diamond Diadem. However, what is disarming about the image is that the Queen is depicted with her eyes closed in contemplation. The artist explained how the image came about, “I wanted the Queen to feel peaceful, so I asked her to rest between shots; this was a moment of stillness that just happened.” The resulting image is indeed peaceful and calm, yet it is also full of gravity and power – a monarch who has reigned over us for 70 years.
This famous painting, ‘The last version of the Light of the World’, nearly life size, hangs in St Paul’s Cathedral, where it is admired by thousands of visitors every year. Sales of postcards and bookmarks of it also run to thousands annually. Very few people, however, will know of its peregrinations before it arrived in St Paul’s.
The painting was commissioned by Charles Booth, a rich ship owner and friend of the Hunts in 1903, by which time Holman Hunt was virtually blind, a combination of glaucoma and working in that minute painstaking Pre-Raphaelite way had taken its toll. So most of the painting was done by E R Hughes under Holman Hunt’s instruction, but this fact was not made public and Hunt took all the credit. When the painting was finished, it was decided that it should go on exhibition to the Christian parts of the Empire.
After a brief exhibition at the Fine Art Society in the Spring of 1904, ‘The last version of the Light of the World’ and its vast frame, together they weighed just under a ton, were crated up and sent to Glasgow. They set sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia in February 1905. In Halifax, where frame and canvas were reunited, it was exhibited in the York Theatre Assembly Rooms. Booth had already employed two men to accompany it and a third was hired here with the sole task of removing it from its frame in under three minutes in case of fire. Percy Fennell, one of its custodians, gave lectures about its symbolism during day and took up station in a hammock beside it at night, with a loaded revolver at the ready. From Halifax the painting went by train to Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg. It reached Vancouver in September.
From Canada, it travelled to Australia. In Sydney it was seen by 25,000 visitors a day. People thought they had seen Jesus. They prayed in front of the painting, fainted and had profound religious experiences. The crowds in Sydney were pushing through turnstiles at the rate of one person every 2.99 seconds, ‘ladies had their hats crushed, sashes torn and blouses deranged’, to quote a local journalist and the Police struggled to keep order.
“The Light of the World” visited Adelaide, Broken Hill, Melbourne and Sydney and then arrived in Auckland, New Zealand on the morning of Easter Day, April 15th, 1906. After Auckland, it spent a day in New Plymouth and then went by train to Wanganui (I once sold to the National Gallery of New Zealand some drawings made by a Scots doctor of his house and garden which was the first building in what became Wanganui. I hadn’t a clue about the importance of what I was selling and completely under-sold them. I’m happy they found their way home, however!)
In Palmerston North it was displayed in the Opera House, where 15,000 people came to see it. Then on it went to Napier, Wellington, Christchurch and finally Invercargill. After a terrifyingly stormy crossing of the Tasman Sea it arrived in Hobart. Artificial lighting in Hobart was a problem, but the Tasmanian Woolgrower’s Association had a vast and well-lit warehouse, which they offered as a venue. “The Light of the World” was exhibited there, propped up on sacks of wheat, surrounded by bales of wool and seen by over 11,000 visitors in the first two days.
It made a return trip to Adelaide. The Director of the Museum there wrote a letter to Booth thanking him for the loan and telling him that 104,000 people had seen it in eight days. After exhibitions in Brisbane and Rockhampton, it set sail for Capetown and was shown there. It was also exhibited in Durban, Pietermaritsburg and Johannesburg, where, just as in Australasia, it drew vast crowds, 25,000 in Johannesburg alone.
By the time it returned home in 1907 after two years abroad, it had been seen by more than seven million people. It is extraordinary to reflect on what an impact this old fashioned, latter-day Pre-Raphaelite painting made on Britons and their empire when one considers that Fauvism was raging in France at the same time and Impressionism was dead.
But what of the model for Jesus, then one of the most recognisable images on the planet. He was called Domenico Mancini (b.1873) and he was a handsome, athletic lad who stood over six feet tall. He and six or seven siblings left Picinisco, the highest village in the Abruzzi mountains in central Italy and settled in Hammersmith in the late 1880s. They became barrow boys, often defending their pitches with their fists. Domenico’s nephew, Alf, in fact, became a professional boxer and had a career of 148 fights, between 1920 and 1931, starting as a featherweight and ending up a middleweight. The Golden Gloves pub in Fulham Palace Road, owned by the Mancini family, was a famous local landmark, when I first arrived in London.
It was in 1889 that the good-looking Domenico was first approached by Sir William Blake Richmond to model for him. Richmond had settled in Hammersmith after his second marriage and was an Italian speaker, having worked for some years with Nino Costa and the Etruscan school. He was also an old friend of Holman Hunt and may well have introduced the two.
It wasn’t long before Domenico suggested to his brothers that they, too, could make a decent living as models, posing in the studio in the winter and keeping costermongering for the summer months.
In the end, Domenico gave up the street life and became a professional model for the rest of his days. Amongst others, he posed for Alma Tadema, Sargent, Frank Brangwyn and Sir Jacob Epstein. He is the boy riding the horse in G F Watts’s magnificent sculpture “Physical Energy” in Kensington Gardens. He wore Edward VII’s robes for a state portrait of the King. Whilst posing for this, they had to slice the King’s patent pumps to accommodate Domenico’s bunions! Getting models to pose for portraits, notably full-length ones, is a tradition going back centuries. Grandees, and especially monarchs, have better things to do than stand for hours in heavy clothing. John Evelyn described going into Van Dycks studio and seeing, propped up against the wall, countless eight foot canvases of men in armour. This work was carried out by assistants. The portraits had no hands and their faces were blank ovals waiting for the great man to paint the important bits from life.
Last, but by no means least, his legs were used by Alfred Drury for his sculpture of Sir Joshua Reynolds, completed in 1931 and now in the courtyard of the Royal Academy, most of us will have seen them. Domenico Mancini died in 1958, the year I went to prep school.
NB
This article was only made possible by the brilliant, scholarly research done on the painting by Jeremy Maas, an old friend of mine and father of Rupert, who entertained our Wednesday Club in his gallery in the Summer. Jeremy published a 240 page book on this one painting in 1984. I dedicate the article to his memory.
Collections are usually amassed over years and great love and care often goes into the acquisition of each piece. Whether your motivation behind the collection is financial or whether it is to leave a legacy, it is vital to make the right choices on the display and care of the artwork or object as these factors will impact the condition of the artwork, not only in the short term, but also in the long term. Condition plays a crucial factor when determining the value on the open market. Many owners are surprisingly casual with their artwork, particularly owners who have inherited the works rather than bought them and, therefore, see them more emotionally rather than in terms of their commercial value.
As with all assets, it’s essential to ensure that works of art are cared for properly and that their condition is maintained since good condition is one of the key factors in their financial value.
Working with clients and their collections over the years, I’ve seen certain recurring issues that can be detrimental to the condition of an artwork, so I’d like to share some of the key things to consider when looking after the items in your collection:
When an object stays in a set position, the risk of damage is minimal, however, when it is moved it is instantly put into a precarious position. Broken items are a frequent casualty in the hands of an over enthusiastic cleaner. If an item is broken, it’s vital to pick up every fragment as this will make repairs more successful and, in most cases, less costly. It’s best to avoid gluing things back together yourself, judging from the attempts I have seen, it’s never quite as easy as you might think!
If you have a valuable and vulnerable collection, it may be worthwhile to take the precautionary measure of employing a Conservation Cleaner. A specialist in this area will have the expertise to handle the object with sensitivity, knowing how and where to lift an object. They will account for weak or fragile areas or surfaces to prevent damage from occurring during the process.
Of course, not everyone has the budget for a Conservation Cleaner and speaking from my own experience, I like to clean the fragile items in my own collection. I treat these items differently to someone who doesn’t have the same emotional attachment, however careful they might be.
If cleaning a shelf which displays many objects, find a safe location and transfer the items to this position. Trying to dust around objects, can result in knocking over adjacent items. If you have something with a handle like a jug, it will be safer to hold it in two hands and hold it from the main body of the object. Hairline cracks which can be invisible to the naked eye can be present and therefore breaks can occur at vulnerable points.
Surface dirt and dust can affect an object as it absorbs moisture from the air, into the surface so it is important to clean an item regularly. A cleaner may adopt a method
that isn’t appropriate and can cause more damage to an object than the dirt itself; a duster may have fibres which can snag and cause damage to an item, for example a delicate gilded picture frame. A good solution for this is to use a soft brush, like an artist’s paint brush, if used gently, these can help remove dust without catching on or abrading vulnerable areas.
Specialist firms offer in-house training to domestic staff charged with the day-to-day maintenance of properties and their contents. Bespoke sessions are put together around the individual requirements of the house and collection, identifying those pieces which are safe to handle and how best to approach them, and to identify which pieces require attention from a conservator.
If an item is very delicate, it is worth considering a bespoke mount or display case to help support it and perhaps to prevent it getting too dusty or from being accidentally knocked over.
Weak picture hangings and mounts are common and are an easily preventable cause of damage. I have seen many an insurance claim following the snapping of a hanging wire. Not only do the pictures themselves become damaged, but they can break items beneath them.
Many owners are so keen to display a new piece, they use the existing fixings without considering whether they are suitably strong. Engaging a specialist to carry out the installation of an artwork can be money well spent.
Pictures should be framed to conservation standards, using non-reactive materials. Works on paper can become foxed – the mottled brown staining which is caused by acids from the backboards or mounts leaching into the surface of the paper. Over time this will cause the paper to degrade.
It also is worth considering changing the glazing for acrylic or glass with a UV filter, this will help retain the colours of the artwork. If acrylic is used, this will prevent damage from occurring in the event of an accident; it will not splinter and break as glass does. However, if you have a pastel artwork, acrylic should not be used as the static charge can draw the pastel to the glazing itself. A good conservation framer can offer recommendations on what will be the best solution for your picture.
Marble and bronze items should be handled and installed by professional handlers, not by general movers who can lift heavy items. People think marble is robust as it is heavy, but in fact its natural veins cause the material to be very weak and prone to damage if handled incorrectly.
The same can be said for bronze as there may inherent weaknesses in the casting. A specialist will know how best to move the item taking weak areas into account.
Consideration should be given as to where you choose to display artwork, and environmental factors such as temperature and humidity should be assessed when choosing a suitable location.
Air conditioning, central heating, artificial lighting and direct sun light all potentially have a detrimental effect on the composition of an artwork, both structurally and in terms of the surface finishes. Certain walls within rooms can provide a more challenging environment than others due to the way the sunlight falls within the room or if they are an external wall which can increase issues with damp.
There is technology available for monitoring environmental conditions and is one of the most effective means of protecting works of art from short-and-long-term environmental damage. However, the information needs to be looked at and analysed and whilst helpful it cannot replace regular inspection of pieces to monitor their condition. I once saw an Andy Warhol ink sketch of which had completely faded, and this apparently had happened in a few months. The owners of the house had been at one of their other properties and this was missed by the house keeping staff.
A report carried out by a specialist to assess the condition of an object can be vital in some situations. It is often a requirement if lending or borrowing a work of art. If carried out by an independent third party, it acts as a neutral account and helps to protect all parties involved in the transaction.
It is also a useful precautionary measure to prevent a costly mistake when purchasing a work of art (a condition report may reveal areas of damage, details of restoration or materials or processes that aren’t inconsistent with the provided date of a piece), and in situations where there is an increased risk of damage, for example during transit.
Items damaged during shipping are a rarity, but accidents do unfortunately happen, which is why so many collectors are keen to explore solutions that allow them to reduce the number of times they need to ship valuables. Christie’s recently used hologram technology to take a Degas Bronze Sculpture of a Dancer on tour, although can this really be a satisfactory substitute for seeing the real item in the flesh?
Insurers may like to engage a professional condition report following a loss, a conservator can potentially point out factors such as an inherent weakness in an object such as a manufacturing fault, like a vein in a piece of marble or an area of previous repair which has caused an area of stress elsewhere in the object.
Outdoor sculpture or furniture is an area that is often overlooked, designed in heavy materials, it is easy to assume that materials such as stone and metal are resilient, however this is not the case and pieces do require care and attention to prevent the objects from deterioration.
There has been an increase in rainfall in the UK, so it is now more important than ever to protect garden statuary from excessive water ingress. Weather extremes are also more commonplace, and this can profoundly affect marble or stone as it absorbs moisture, followed by freezing temperatures which can cause the stone to crack due to the fluctuations.
A wax coating can be applied to bronzes to help protect the surface from the elements. Sculptures of stone or metal should be covered during winter; the purpose of a cover is to help maintain a steady condition to help mitigate damaging fluctuations. The covers must be lightweight so as not to damage the sculpture, but robust enough to protect the object. In interest of sustainability and to minimise cost to the client, there are covers available which can be stored during more temperament months and then reused when necessary.
So, you have taken precautionary measures, but accidents can happen and when they do the following steps may just help:
Gather up all of the broken pieces, no matter how small – restoration can often be more successful if all of the original pieces have been saved and this will also help lessen any loss in value.
For more information contact Sarah Giles on 07876 147230 or visit www.sarahgilescc.com
In the early 1950s, L.S. Lowry completed a very small number of large industrial landscape compositions, each of which included many, if not all, of his favourite motifs, people, chimneys, dogs, children, houses, lakes, etc… this particular 1953 ‘Industrial’ features another favourite, Stockport Viaduct, seen towards the rear of the composition.
In a letter from Lowry to the Tate about the 1955 large Industrial in their collection, Lowry writes ‘this is a composite picture, a blank canvas, I didn’t have the slightest idea when I started the picture, but it eventually came out the way you see it, this is the way I like working best.’
In fact, there are only four of these monumental Lowry industrial landscapes, all were painted between 1950 and 1955. The picture below, which I first encountered in 1988, dates from 1953 and was at the time, the only one of the four still left in private hands and available to own. The other three were already part of permanent Museum collections.
Then one day in the late summer of 1988 I received a call out of the blue from the director of a kitchen manufacturer in Manchester, he told me that they owned a Lowry ‘industrial’ painting and that for fiduciary reasons the company needed to sell it before the end of the year and could we (Christie’s) help. At this stage, I knew very little about the picture, as back then there was no email or internet, so I was flying blind as to whether it was th one I was thinking it was or a print or something else…
I put the phone down having made an appointment to see it the next day and I made my way up to Manchester, arriving at an unpromising anonymous industrial estate just outside the centre.
As I made my way up to the top floor, I notice there was nothing on the walls anywhere except for a few Lowry poster type prints. I was beginning to think I was on a wild goose chase when as I turned a corner, there in front of me on the director’s office wall was an utterly monumental and glorious 45” x 60” inch industrial landscape oil painting, truly a Lowry masterpiece!!
I was blown away by it but manage to compose myself enough for a conversation with the MD who was charming and easy to talk to. I established that in principle the company was very happy to sell it with me, at Christie’s in our upcoming 11th November 1988 auction with a then world record estimate of £100,00-150,000. Today it would probably be £3-5 million! However, in every good auction tale, there is a wrinkle. In this case the MD had offered the Salford Art Gallery the option to buy the picture before the auction if they could raise £100,000 in time. Back then, Salford City Council’s Lowry collection was housed on the top floor of the Salford Museum and Art Gallery, in Peel Park, Salford. The state of the art ‘Lowry’ Art Gallery and theatre complex was just a twinkle in somebody’s eye.
Let’s step back for a moment and set the scene back in 1988: the Art market, particularly Modern and Impressionist Art, was roaring away. Contemporary Art was 30 years away from being the dominant force it is today and the market for Art and Antiques was at an all-time high, even today some of the prices achieved back then have never been beaten and buyers were hungry for rare pictures. Interestingly, also at this time Donald Trump was in London making his first ‘state’ visit. He and his wife Ivana were in town and appeared as guests on Terry Wogan’s nightly TV chat show, Wogan even makes a rare ‘slip up’ by calling Ivana, ‘Diana’. Donald doesn’t even notice the gaff as he launches into his ideas on how he ‘could make America great again’.
A few days after my visit the Lowry picture arrived safely from Manchester and I was relieved and pleased to see it matched up with all our research so we could get on and prepare our catalogue entry and get it photographed for the upcoming 11th November auction, where it was included as lot 480. The catalogue came out in the second week of October and calls began to come in for the various lots, including lot 480, which was beginning to create a real buzz around it. I remember one major dealer coming in to view it before the public viewing and telling me that he thought it could make £250,000 or more, and that he was prepared to bid up to £350,000, a price well over three times the then world record. This would have set the Lowry market alight which is what I was secretly hoping for…
Of course, I was also hoping Salford would be able to acquire the picture and as the auction day drew nearer this looked increasingly likely and indeed, I think by Wednesday 9th November I had verbal followed by written confirmation that Salford has purchased the piece and the picture was duly withdrawn from sale and later transported up to Salford where it hangs today in pride of place in the Lowry Salford Quays next to the new Media Centre.
This was truly one that got away and looking back I am certain that if it had been offered there was enough presale interest for it to have made a huge price, thus electrifying the Lowry market 20 years earlier. Had that been the case, who knows where prices would be now!!
It is hard to know what to make of the Old Master Sales at the beginning of July. The totals of Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonhams at under £50m were only just above half of what they were last year at £80m.
The wonderful Lucas Cranach (lot 6 in Christie’s evening sale) of the Nymph of the Spring, a naked girl in a rocky river landscape, sold for £9.4m. More than the whole of the Sotheby’s Evening Sale put together (£7.1m).
There were some strong individual prices, just not enough of them. I’ve chosen 3 pictures from last weeks crop of Old Masters to write about, one from each of the major London salerooms.
What these three have in common is that they are all in beautiful state and, to my mind, are attractive images, but they are all slightly old-fashioned English “Country House” taste. It was going to be very interesting to see how they fared, in a market obsessed with the quirky and the novel.
My Bonhams choice was lot 60, a fine horse portrait by James Seymour. It was described as “a brown thoroughbred”, traditionally identified as “Spanking Roger”. I thought the presence of two foxhounds and a groom who looked as if he was wearing Beaufort Hunt livery implied that he was a hunter, but my brother-in-law, Hamish Alexander, who is in the racing world said the horse was too fine-boned to be a hunter. I take his word for it. He is an expert and Bonhams got it right.
Despite a suggestion that the signature and date were added later, he galloped away from an estimate of £30,000-50,000 to a very respectable £157,000.
My Sotheby’s choice was the star lot, a marvellous Willem van de Velde the Younger of “The Surrender of the Royal Prince during the Four Days’ Battle”. Although the subject was war, there was no gore, not too many burning vessels, nor drowning sailors and the composition was well -balanced and harmonious, but it didn’t find a buyer. I think the problem was the estimate; at £4-6m the top end was already a world record for the artist at auction. At half that estimate, it would have sailed away.
We finish on an optimistic note! Christie’s offered, as lot 12 in their evening sale, a Pastoral Landscape by Jacob van Ruisdael, the great Haarlem landscape painter. There was a panel join in the sky, but it hardly showed and the evening sun catching the sandy bank of the stream in the foreground, was just the sort of touch that appealed so much in Jacob’s work to John Constable. He owned four of them and made copies of others. This painting more than doubled the estimate with the price of £3.4m including buyer’s premium. It was painted in oil on a small oak panel, just over 2 feet wide and it was a very gentle subject, but it struck a chord in the hearts of several bidders.
If there is a lesson to be learned from these sales, it is that good Old Masters still command strong prices, but it is difficult for auctioneers to persuade collectors to part with their paintings in a time of conflict and inflation.
Back in 2005, I was newly married, London based and high on life. Money was tight, but we were cool. I’ve always loved poster art. Remember Athena? Later New York subway graffiti album cover art and band posters. Maybe because that’s all I could afford. At that time we read alternative magazines, went to all manner of clubs, listened to house music and drank Smirnoff ice.
However, the Country was also at war. Mobile phone and personal computers were becoming commonplace, and the traditional methods of communication and control were on the wane. There felt a real burgeoning of youthful expression against the ‘accepted norm’. Artists such as Faile, Eulus and Banksy, to name but a few, were hosting the odd show and having read an article on Banksy, an early Internet search took me to the now notorious and now defunct ‘Pictures on Walls’.
On their website was Banksy’s CND Soldiers and Jack and Jill. Signed copies were £156.50. I forget how much the unsigned copies were.
So, for my birthday we went all in and bought a signed Banksy CND soldiers. Limited Edition of 350. Arrived rolled up in a tube! It shows two soldiers in full combat gear surreptitiously painting a red CND sign on a wall. I loved it. It said everything about my views on the current war, the bold colours, glorious details and it was subversive in a very nice way!
We had it framed and it hung in our house, carefully shaded from sunlight for 10 years.
By 2016, I was a single mum of two boisterous boys whose parkour moves were practised upon all pieces of furniture and under the gaze of the, often wonky, CND soldiers. I had followed in the rise of Banksy and one day realised I really should insure it. An art broker friend suggested to have it insured for between £7,000 and £10,000. I was stunned. I simply did not have the money to insure the picture, coupled with the fact I needed a new kitchen.
So, with the help of my broker, a nice Belgian gentleman offered an astounding £14,000 (inc fees) and also offered to pay for packing and transport. I did offer it to the Andipa gallery in Knightsbridge, but they felt £7,000 was the most they would go to.
So, off my Banksy went to Belgium, as part of a pension pot, and I built a lovely kitchen. However, within a couple of years the same picture went for £32,000 at auction and now commands in the region of £50,000.
Yes, I am gutted I sold the picture, as it would be in my pension pot now. However, that piece of art gave a single mum the chance to have a new heart to her home. To feel good about having people over and to look to the future. The one that got away, yes, but left great memories, and sometimes that might be more worthwhile.
The “ones that got away” would be a more apt description of my career! Jan van de Capelle, Hugo van de Goes, John Constable, they have all slipped through my hands.
When you are young, you don’t always back your own judgement: you buy paintings speculatively and then start to research them. This involves showing photographs or the picture itself to whoever is the acknowledged expert. If they come back to you and say: “no, it isn’t by such and such”, you take it on the chin. You would never have the temerity to ask them to justify their opinion. That comes later, when you are older and have seen how fallible scholars are.
The picture I have chosen is a Transfiguration by Ludovico Carracci. I bought it at Phillips Son and Neale (now Bonhams) 40 years ago, catalogued as Italian School. I thought it was beautifully painted and probably Bolognese. It had a noble provenance “The Earl of Darnley” and was housed in a fine, if bulky, William IV carved and giltwood frame, all of which felt very positive to me. My brother, James, still has the frame with a mirror in it, in his hall.
After cleaning, which revealed a surface in remarkable condition, I had it photographed and sent images to the two most eminent scholars on Bolognese Baroque Art, one in the USA and the other in Germany. Their names are available upon request! Sadly, neither of them had a clue who painted my picture, nor did they show any enthusiasm for it. I advertised it in Apollo (Art Magazine) as “Italian School” and there was no response to that either!
Several years passed and I got a call from a friend who had found an old copy of Apollo and wondered if I still had the painting and, of course, I did. By some extraordinary fluke he had been working in a provincial museum Print Room and had come across two 17th Century engravings after my painting where the author was given as Ludovico Carracci, so he immediately realised the significance of what he’d seen. He asked me what the best price was and we shook hands on £6,000. It had cost me £3,000 before cleaning and reframing so it wasn’t a greedy price despite looking as if I had doubled my money.
He was not a rich man so I knew that he must know who the author of my Transfiguration was and that’s when he told me about the two prints. Good luck to him but, why on earth didn’t the two scholars I had consulted know about the prints and, therefore, the missing picture? Anyway, my friend kept it for decades, but in 2007 he sold it to the National Gallery of Scotland where it hangs to this day.
The moral of the story is… be patient and back your own judgement.
We were delighted to spend a day visiting the @masterpiecefair last week, with clients and the team.
What an incredible collection!
