Tag Archives: rembrandt

Old Master Sales December 2023

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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. These totals would have been nearly 40% lower but for an early Rembrandt of the Adoration of the Magi sold by Sotheby’s to the guarantor for £9.5M and two Canalettos (1697-1768) (not a pair, but part of a set of Venetian views), sold at Christie’s for £8.2M. They had never previously been published and were, therefore, ‘fresh’ to the market.

Interestingly, the Rembrandt at Sotheby’s, had been offered by Christie’s Amsterdam, two years ago, as ‘Circle of Rembrandt’, with an estimate of €10-15,000. It was knocked down to the Sotheby’s consignor for €860,000. So, somebody else had recognised its potential, too.

My favourite painting from all the sales was the most unusual ‘The Virgin in Prayer’, by the enigmatic Flemish artist, Michiel Sweerts (1618-1664).

This is a picture within a picture. Sweerts paints himself, peeping shyly round the edge of a framed picture of the Virgin in Prayer, which he has painted and, which he is showing to you, the onlooker, with a cloudy sky behind him. It is a touching picture, not only for the sacred nature of the central subject, but because here is the apprehensive artist, watching anxiously to gauge your response to his painting. It made a well-deserved £1.4M hammer price, 3 ½ times the lower estimate.

If the market is wary of exposing Old Master masterpieces at the current time, no such worries affected the group of beautiful Rembrandt etchings collected by the discerning Sam Josefowitz. There were some great rarities offered amongst the 70 lots offered in a dedicated catalogue and every print was in excellent condition. This was a collection for connoisseurs and museum curators. Every lot sold, mostly well above the top estimate and 51 world records were achieved for individual subjects. This catalogue and the 5 prints offered in their Old Master sale, grossed Christie’s £10.2M including buyer’s premium. The front cover lot of a Sea Shell, (Conus Marmoreus), which measures 97 x 132 mm and is an etching, engraving and drypoint on laid paper, made £730,800 with buyer’s premium. It is a natural object of profound beauty and simplicity. It was the top price of the sale and proves that whatever market conditions prevail, masterpieces will find their true level.

New Rembrandt in Oxford

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There is great excitement at my local museum, the Ashmolean in Oxford, as some of you may have read in the Guardian on Sunday 30th August. An van Camp, curator of Northern Europe Art at the museum has made a great discovery in the museum’s basement. She was concerned that a small oak panel of the head of a melancholic old man, bequeathed to the museum in 1951 as a Rembrandt, but subsequently rejected by the Rembrandt Research Project, as an old fake merited re-examination. She was quite right! She said “It is what Rembrandt does. He does these tiny head studies of old men with forlorn, melancholic, pensive looks. It is very typical of what Rembrandt does in Leiden around 1630”.

In 1630 Rembrandt shared a studio in Leiden with his childhood friend Jan Lievens and visitors to the studio said their work was interchangeable it was so similar.

Head_of_a_Bearded_Man_Rembrandt

Head of a Bearded Man Rembrandt

The painting was examined by Peter Klein, a leading dendrochronologist and he established that it was painted on a panel of Baltic oak from the same tree as the panel used by Rembrandt for his ‘Andromeda chained to the Rocks’ in the Mauritshuis Museum in the Hague and the panel used by Lievens for his ‘Portrait of Rembrandt’s Mother’ in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden. Both paintings were executed around 1630, just as An van Camp had surmised about the Ashmolean panel. Rembrandt did not have pupils at this stage of his career, so it seems almost certain it is by him.

Dendrochronology has become a very exact science and works best on oak panels from Northern Europe. In Italy they painted on Poplar, Walnut and Lime and these soft woods are very hard to analyse. Dendrochronology works by taking a cross section of the growth rings of a tree. In wet years they are wide and in dry ones black and narrow. Each panel reads like a bar code and there are enough securely dated altarpieces and panel paintings that a huge database has arisen going back from the present day to almost the last ice age. This last bit did not involve altarpieces! I once had a painting by Hendrick Martensz. Sorgh, which had a remnant of bark attached. Usually panel makers cut off the soft green outer wood as it is so prone to woodworm or beetle attack. Dr Ian Tyres, who is an English Dendrochronologist could date the tree to within 6 months of its felling!

I saw the ‘Young Rembrandt’ exhibition at the Ashmolean before lockdown and it is a ‘must-see show’; it reveals so much about the prodigious talents of this young miller’s son.
It re-opened on August 10th and now runs until November 1st. I urge you to go and see it, but remember these days you have to book a timed ticket in advance, to conform with social distancing regulations.

Rembrandt to Richter

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Ben Hanly on the Unusual Format of Sotheby’s Forthcoming ‘Rembrandt to Richter’ Sale

No doubt influenced by their hugely successful gamble in 2017 to sell Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in their Post War and Contemporary sale rather than in its traditional Old Masters setting, Sotheby’s has decided to take a similar approach this month with its much lauded summer auction – From Rembrandt to Richter.

On 28th July Sotheby’s breaks with auction tradition and showcases the finest quality works from all periods within a single sale – their rational being that quality transcends chronological period, and that the traditional auction categories are now unnecessary at the top end of the market. Behind this laudable aesthetic judgement lies solid business acumen – Sotheby’s, along with all the major auctions houses, are very keen to expand audiences for the less hyped markets they represent, and to entice cash rich, young contemporary collectors to consider purchases in more traditional areas. What better way of doing this than putting a major Gerard Richter Triptych (Wolken) along side one of the last Rembrandt Self Portraits remaining in private hands – the idea being that if they looks great at Sotheby’s, why wouldn’t they look great in a collector’s home.

Only time will tell whether this gamble pays off, but it’s hard to see how it can fail with so many beautiful works on offer. One thing is for sure, the sale’s key lot – Rembrandt’s Self Portrait, estimated at £12-16m, is expected to achieve a very strong price, solidly in the £20m region. Bearing in mind the iconic nature of this work, even the expected bullish price in the £20s clearly illustrates the relative value of buying in alternative areas of the market in comparison to the staggering prices achieved at the top end of the Contemporary market.
Download the From Rembrandt to Richter article here