Risk Brings Rewards in Old Masters Sales

Courtesy Sotheby's

Hendrick Ter Brugghen’s "Bagpipe Player in Profile"

Joseph Mallord William Turner Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes Federico Barocci Hendrik van der Borcht Francois Boucher John Constable Lovis Corinth Jean Fouquet

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De Jonckheere also snared Francesco Guardi’s tiny pair of Venetian views — The Isola della Beata Vergine del Rosario and The Isola di S. Servolo — for $ 80,500 (est. $30–50,000). He said he plans to take the pictures to the Old Master–heavy TEFAF fair in Maastricht in March.

The sale’s only big drama occurred during bidding for the stunning and rare cover lot, Federico Barocci’s Head of Saint John the Evangelist, an oil study for The Entombment of Christ in the church of Santa Croce, in Senigallia, Italy. The work sold to seasoned London dealer Jean-Luc Baroni for $1,762,500 (est. $400–600,000).

“I bought it for a client,” said Baroni. “The condition is fantastic; it looks untouched. It’s incredible that it reached us in this condition.”

“I honestly think the estimate was extremely low,” he continued. “Frankly, at that price, I think we got very lucky.”

Baroni was also busy at Sotheby’s Old Master Drawings session that same morning, when a colleague from the gallery outgunned a lone telephone bidder a splendid work by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, A Hunter with His Dog in a Landscape in irongall ink from circa 1812–20, which fetched $698,500 (est. $600-800,000). “When people are more positive, it will be highly desirable,” noted the dealer, who said he bought the drawing for stock.

The Old Master Drawings session of 162 lots made a total of $2,313,189, with top-heavy buy-in rates of 48 percent and 25 percent by value.

Sotheby’s Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture, January 29
The action had a different feel the following day at Sotheby’s, where the morning session of Important Old Master Paintings realized $57,647,000 for the 92 lots offered, with buy-in rates of 39.5 percent by lot and 37 percent by value. The pre-sale estimate was $74,380,000–103,020,000.

Despite falling short of those numbers, Sotheby’s scored some big results, as all of its top 10 lots earned over $1 million, including a highly anticipated J. M.W. Turner oil, The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored, on offer from veteran New York dealer Richard Feigen.

Though the painting was not designated as “guaranteed,” auctioneer Henry Wyndham announced it carried an irrevocable bid, meaning someone had pledged a bid high enough to meet the reserve.

In any case, two bidders drove the hammer price to $11.5 million, or $12,962,500 with the buyer’s premium (est. $12-16 million).

Wyndham contributed some tension-breaking humor, mistakenly announcing the opening bid at £9 million, causing guffaws in the room.

Feigen, who paid £648,000 when he acquired the painting at Christie’s London in 1982, said he was sad to see it go.

Feigen also played a significant role — as the underbidder — in the seesaw competition for the sale’s restituted cover lot, Hendrick Ter Brugghen’s Bagpipe Player in Profile. The 1624 painting was auctioned by the Nazis in a forced sale in Berlin in November 1938 and restituted to the heirs of Herbert von Klemperer in July 2008.

At Sotheby’s it sold to London dealer Johnny van Haeften for a record $10,162,500 (est. $4–6 million).

“It didn’t have a price before the sale, because there was nothing to compare it with,” said van Haeften after the sale. “It was sort of a last-chance saloon.”

Asked about the high price, he quipped, “Compare it to a Freud or Bacon portrait; it’s a gift.”

Van Haeften said the work wouldn’t be on his stand in Maastricht because “it’s too early to bring it out again.” He added that the work would require a gentle cleaning.

If anyone doubts there’s little juice left in this old timers’ market, note the intense heat generated for two very different pictures, which both sold for many times their estimates: Francois Boucher’s The Muse Erato, originally painted for the Marquise de Pompadour, which sold for $1,314,500 (est. $300–500,000) after last selling at Christie’s New York in January 1991 for $330,000; and Pierre Subleyras’s signed and dated sleeper Portrait of Pope Benedict XIV from 1746, which sold to New York dealer Adam Williams for $986,500 (est. $100–150,000).