November Auction Lots

Undervalued
Gerhard Richter
"Vesuv (Vesuvius) 407" (1976)
Phillips de Pury & Company Contemporary Sale,
November 15
Sold for $1,833,000
Est. $1.8–2.5 million

Richter’s romantic nature painting from 1976, based on photographs he took in southern Italy, mime the philosophical approach of the 19th-century landscape master and fellow German Caspar David Friedrich. Though relatively small in scale at 26 by
37 3/8 inches, the meticulously composed, panoramic but barren painting, one of a series of seven, packs a punch. Given Richter’s Olympian stature as one of the world’s greatest living artists, and with other paintings in his oeuvre, such as 1963’s "Düsenjager," fetching $11.2 million the same week, "Vesuv" rates high as a connoisseur’s great, undervalued acquisition.

Courtesy Phillips de Pury & Company