Welcoming Registered Bidders from across 15 Countries and 4 Continents. Christie’s Classic Week sales continue presenting art from antiquity to modern classics.
Leading Christie’s Classic Week in London, the Old Masters Evening Sale realised £13,145,100 / $16,023,877 / €15,208,881 selling 89% lot and 97% by value. Leading the sale was Jean-François de Troy’s tableaux de mode of a sumptuously dressed, sun-dappled Reading Party which achieved £2,922,000 / $3,561,918 / €3,380,754, bringing the combined total for the Collection of Lord and Lady Weinstock to £8,082,595 / $9,632,479 / €9,315,978.
Further highlights included Anthony van Dyck’s beautifully tender Portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria which achieved £2,442,000 / $2,976,798 / €2,825,394, and Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus by Hans Holbein The Younger and Workshop sold for £1,122,000 / $1,367,718 / €1,298,154, achieving a world auction record for the artist.
The gold grounds from the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection were 100% sold, led by Barnaba da Modena’s Madonna and Child with two angels, which realised £882,000 / $1,075,158 / €1,020,474, achieving a new world auction record for the artist. Six further works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection are available in the online sale which closes on 9 December.
Clementine Sinclair, Head of the Old Masters London: “Building on the strong results for Old Masters in the Getty and Paul Allen collection sales in New York this autumn, the Old Masters December Evening Sale was 89% sold by lot, Christie’s highest lot percentage for an Old Masters sale in London. There was strong competitive bidding throughout the sale with 33% of the lots selling above estimate.
The top lots – by de Troy, van Dyck, Holbein the Younger, Barnaba da Modena and Heda – spanned the 14th to the 18th centuries, emphasising the breadth of interest and demand across this market. There were notable groups of Italian gold grounds and vedute paintings, both of which were 100% sold. Classic Week continues until 15th December, with the Old Master Paintings and Sculpture Online sale closing on 9th December.”
Artist Records
Lot 3: Hans Holbein The Younger (Augsburg 1497-1543 London) and Workshop, Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), half-length – price realised £1,122,000 / $1,367,718 / €1,298,154
Lot 4: Jacob Savery The Elder (Kortrijk 1565/1567-1603 Amsterdam), A winter landscape with peasants and cattle by a farmstead, with skaters on a frozen river beyond – price realised: £554,400 / $675,814 / €641,441
Lot 7: Antonio Stom, called Il Tonino (Venice 1688-1734), The Molo, Venice, looking west with the reception of the Papal Envoy at the Doge’s Palace – price realised: £138,600 / $168,953 / €160,360
Lot 17: Barnaba Agocchiari, called Barnaba Da Modena (Modena C. 1328/30-C.1386), Madonna and Child with two angels – price realised: £882,000 / $1,075,158 / €1,020,474
Lot 26: Sebastiano Conca (Gaeta 1680-1764 Naples), Portrait of George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, PRS – price realised: £378,000 / $460,782 / €437,346
