Going, going, gone…
Ten of the best works at this week's Old Masters auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's in London
We try to go to as many viewings as we can at the big auction houses in London – you get to see so many wonderful works of art as they pass briefly from private collection to private collection. This week is Old Masters week. We went to the viewings yesterday, and I’ve picked ten of the best – a mix of the big-ticket items and personal favourites (some of them both, of course).
In no particular order, then…
No. 1 The Madonna of the Cherries, by Quentin Metsys
Quite the story comes with this one. Painted in the 1520s in Antwerp, it disappeared from view in the seventeenth century and didn’t surface again until it was offered at auction in Paris in 1920. By that time, the window and the landscape beyond had been obscured by the addition of a translucent green curtain. In that form, and no longer attributed directly to Metsys, it was actually sold at auction by Christies in 2015. You can see what it looked like then here. (By the way, in 2015 and in disguise it sold for £254,500; the current estimate on the restored painting is £8m to £12m.)
You can read more about the painting and its rich history here.
No. 2 Topaz, by Albert Joseph Moore
Quite avant garde in its day, Topaz was described as ‘one of the most singular and novel pictures of modern times’ when it was first exhibited in 1879. Neither the lovely soft iridescence of the fabric nor the delicacy of its green-grey-yellow colouring quite translate photographically, but it was stunning in person - and I think the image still captures something of its qualities.
You can read more about the painting here.
No. 3 The Virgin and Child, with a landscape beyond, by Botticelli and his studio
When last auctioned in 2001 this was attributed fully to Botticelli, and, if I have understood the catalogue properly, scholarship is once again trending towards full attribution. If you look at the Sotheby’s website here, you can see a fascinating infrared image of the under-drawing which reveals evidence of Botticelli working on and revising the composition. Like anything that show’s an artist’s mind at work, it is eerily thrilling to see.
Side note: At one point, the painting belonged to Almina Rothschild, wife of George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, who financed the discovery and excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb.
No. 4 Portrait of a lady at a window, French school, early 19th century
I am a big fan of the genre of painting you might describe as ‘woman looking wistfully out of a window’, and I thought this was just a lovely example of that.
I’m not sure if you can tell from the image, but this is a small piece - even with the chunky frame it’s only c.30cm by 25cm – but I love how the vista, and particularly the expanse of blue sky, dominate the composition.
According to a note on the back of the painting, the woman in question is Henriette Campan. Campan was a chambermaid to Marie Antoinette and was in the Tuileries Palace when it was stormed by revolutionaries in 1792. She escaped with her life but with little else. Subsequently, she established herself as a prominent educator for girls with a school at Saint-Germain-en-Laye – which, the note says, is where this painting was made, sometime between 1794 and 1804.
There is more about the painting here.
(Incidentally, another example of the genre at Sotheby’s yesterday was this by Carl Holsøe, which I also really liked.)
No. 5 Portrait of a Young Man, attributed to the Master of the Augsburg Portraits of Painters
Given the attribution I imagine this ought to be a portrait of a fellow artist, and the identification on the frame supports that. I don’t know why this is no longer thought to be a portrait of Hans Baldung Grien, but he was indeed an artist of the German Renaissance who studied under Dürer. It’s a beautiful portrait in any event, but what makes it so arresting is the choice of background colours which - to me, at any rate - give it a strange air of modernity.
There isn’t much more information, but you can read more about the painting here.
No. 6 Wings of an altarpiece, by Bartholomäus Zeitblom
Dated to around 1500 the subjects are husband and wife Wilhelm von Schwendi and Barbara Krafft von Dellmensingen. They were originally situated on either side of an altarpiece which the couple had donated to the chapel of St Anne in the town of Schwendi in Baden-Württemberg. But for reasons unknown - at least, certainly unknown to me - they were removed by members of the Krafft von Dellmensingen family in 1758, in whose possession they have remained ever since.
Aside from the vibrant immediacy of the colours, I love the theatrical sense of depth and the way their eyes meet - across the altar, in context, but now also across the centuries - and the intensity of that connection, which seems at once intimate and devotional.
You can read more about the paintings here.
No. 7, The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, by Titian
Another of the season’s big-ticket items, this Titian has been at Longleat House since the late nineteenth century: it was last up for auction in 1878. The catalogue notes that this is one of the last of the artist’s early religious pieces to remain in private hands. Dated to the years around 1510, what really stands out is the tenderness and naturalism of all the figures and the deep sense of care - at once wearied and resolute - that both Joseph and Mary exhibit. The fabrics are, of course, gorgeous too.
As the catalogue rather charmingly puts it, the painting has an impeccable provenance but a more adventurous recent history. It was stolen from Longleat in January 1995 and wasn’t recovered until seven years later, when - after the announcement of a £100,000 reward for information - it was retrieved from a carrier bag at a London bus-stop. (The Guardian report of the find is here.)
There is a superb long essay about the painting and its exceptionally storied history here.
No. 8 St Jerome in his Study, by Pieter Coecke Van Aelst I
There are, as I am sure you all know, countless paintings of Saint Jerome. One of the Church Fathers, Jerome translated the Bible into Latin at the end of the fourth century. His edition, latterly known as the Vulgate, became the standard Latin text and remained so well into the twentieth century. As a rule, paintings of Jerome depict him as a somewhat austere scholar - often to the extent of placing him in a cave - so one of the things I love about this is the profusion of things in what appears very much to be Jerome’s office. (In this it is, if I may say so, pretty representative of the working habits of many scholars.)
There is more information about the painting, which dates to 1530, here. As the catalogue notes in the essay I have linked to, the influence of Dürer’s painting of Saint Jerome is evident on Coecke’s work, but look at how much Coecke has introduced too! I could look at it for hours.
No. 9 Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives at Sunrise, by Gustav Bauernfeind
Mindful that I haven’t chosen any landscapes yet, I have gone for this epic view of the Holy City. In his last years Bauernfeind lived in the Holy Land, and the painting is dated to around 1902, a couple of years before he died. The way he has captured first light falling on the city does is breathtaking; it does feel somewhat like a benediction. The more you look, the more the apparent realism of the painting seems to dissolve into something more complex: up close the temples and houses caught in the sun seem to look forward to the work of someone like Paul Klee. It was only after a while that I noticed the multi-faith, multi-ethnic group of people walking up the hillside towards the viewer. I take their presence to juxtapose quotidian reality and the city’s mythic status, a place so storied that is almost a mirage.
There is more about the painting here.
No. 10 Six Paintings depicting the Celebrated Deeds of the Porto Family of Vicenza, by Tiepolo.
I was going to cheat here and have all six of these as my tenth choice, but the Substack gallery option only seems to let you have multiple images if they are square, which entirely kills the impact of these pieces. Each of them is immense – they are all of similar size and the smallest is c.272cm by 172cm – and Sotheby’s has them grouped together in a dedicated space so that they tower over you on every side. The effect is overwhelming. At first, in fact, it takes a moment to realise what you’re looking at, because the tromp l’oeil effect is so powerfully achieved. The lustre of the gold ground employed across all six simply adds to the disorientation: my photo doesn’t quite capture it, but it is as if the paintings are lit from within. It’s really quite remarkable – I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it – and together the images really do make the power and authority of the Porto family so tangible it dries your throat.
You can read more about the paintings, and see high quality images of all six, which I highly recommend, here.
I could easily have picked a top thirty, but I imagine that would have been a chore to scroll through. As it is, do let me know what you think in the comments!