The Old Masters auction held at Christie's in London on 8 July totalled £45.3 million including fees. Despite three lots withdrawn before the sale, including a Portrait of an English Nobleman by Anthony van Dyck, estimated at £3 million, the solid result was the highest for an Old Masters evening sale in the London branch since 2016. Christie's announced 78% of lots sold, 75% from bidders based in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, while experts at ArtTactic put the average hammer price at £811,457.
“We’ve given a real boost to the Old Masters market," said Henry Pettifer, Christie's London Old Masters International Director, Head of Evening Sales. The house recorded no less than seven artist records, as well as the second-highest painting for Artemisia Gentileschi and Angelica Kauffmann (two of only three female artists represented at the sale). According to Clementine Sinclair, Christie's London Old Masters Specialist, Head of Evening Sales, demand for works by female masters has peaked recently, and the paintings on display at the 8 July auction have sparked very intense auction battles.
See also: On Rocky Paths: Female Artists from the Renaissance and Enlightenment
This series of records includes that of the French Baroque painter Georges de La Tour, a major representative of Caravaggism in 17th-century France, whose works are rare to find still in private hands. Indeed, only 47 works by de La Tour are known and their rare appearances on the market are still eagerly awaited by collectors. "They are in such short supply,” Pettifer said. “The prices are reflective of his major importance and rarity.”
The work presented on 8 July, a portrait of Saint Andrew painted in the early 1620s, sold for £4.28 million including fees, setting a new record for the artist. The previous record had been set by La Fillette au Brasier, one of the master's last night scenes in private hands, which sold for €4.34 million (£3.2 mil) during a sale in Cologne, Germany in December 2020.
This Saint Andrew, an oil on canvas measuring 62 x 50.5 cm, is part of the famous series the Apostles of Albi, of which only six of the thirteen paintings made by the artist in the 1620s remain today. Unlike the other surviving paintings of the series, whose subjects can easily be mistaken for street figures, the religious nature of this work is beyond doubt. We see a disarmingly calm Saint Andrew in front of the Crux Decussata (an X-shaped cross which would have been used, according to tradition, to torture him), staring at the open book in front of him in meditative silence.
See also: The Enduring Appeal of Old Masters
The frontal composition is reinforced by the use of chiaroscuro visible mainly in the folds of the saint's mantle. Despite its early date, the work already presents a very sophisticated treatment. The dark atmosphere, characteristic of the Albi series, is broken only by the red of the coat, a colour that dominated de La Tour's work throughout his career.
The auction also saw six other auction records, boosting the reputations of artists such as Bernardo Bellotto, Adriaen van de Velde, Francesco Tironi, Gregorio di Cecco da Lucca, diptych master Sterbini and Marco Ricci. Bellotto's work, View of Verona with the Ponte delle Navi, established itself as the star lot of the session, reaching £10.5 million including fees.
This Venetian view measuring over 1.5 x 2.5 m had not been presented on the market for fifty years and had been on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Scotland since 1973. Monumental and ambitious, the canvas was painted around 1745-47, when the artist was only twenty years old. The nephew of Canaletto, Bellotto had a precocious talent and was interested in the precise details of the views he represented.
"This is a bigger sale than we would normally have," said Clementine Sinclair, "and I think that’s partly due to the fact we didn’t hold an Old Masters evening sale last July, so there was some pent-up demand of collectors wanting to sell.”
