In London – Energizing the Old Masters market

Newly discovered and long lost works generally add a jolt to the Old Masters market and an array of paintings in the July evening auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s in London are worthy of attention, including a pair of portraits by Rembrandt, and pictures by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and Michael Sweerts. And there are others that return with new attributions, the newly cleaned, and the occasional work that just can’t seem to find a buyer no matter how often it appears with an increasingly lower estimate. Add in a smattering of still lifes and vedute plus some portraiture and you have a sale.

At Christie’s there are several works that are “fresh” – those attracting the most media attention are the Rembrandt portraits, more about them below. Let’s start with an Allegory of Spring by the perpetually market friendly Pieter Brueghel the Younger, a thoroughly capable and entertaining artist who made a career largely of reproducing his father’s works (this was the subject of a 2002 exhibition in Maastricht and Brussels, Brueghel Enterprises, for which there is an excellent catalogue). Indeed, there is a whole subsection of the Old Masters market devoted to works by the many Brueghels (Pieter the Elder, Pieter the Younger, Jan the Elder, Jan the Younger, etc.). The discolored varnish notwithstanding, the picture is a delight filled with numerous vignettes of spring time village life: eight workers tend a formal flower garden; three figures wrestle with sheep they’re shearing, while another carries a basket of newly shorn wool; across a stream in an open expanse before a row of thatched roof houses a dozen or so figures are dancing (though one seems to have been overserved – he’s tended by a woman as he vomits); there are pigs and ducks; a young figure fishing; and others going about their day. 

Conceived as part of a series about the seasons, the original by Pieter the Elder from 1565 is in the Albertina in Vienna. There are some twenty autograph versions by Pieter the Younger; this one carries a £600,000-800,000 estimate. According to the sale catalogue: “Spring was evidently one of the more frequently requested seasons from Pieter the Younger as an individual painting. In the certificate for the painting by [leading Brueghel scholar] Dr. Klaus Ertz, dated 27 February 2018, confirming the attribution after first-hand examination, Dr. Ertz rates the present work among the most well preserved versions.” The quality, condition, and the fact this previously unpublished work has been in the same family for more than a century will likely result in a hefty price.

Among the more enigmatic of the “fresh” works is The Artist’s Studio with a Seamstress by the equally enigmatic Michael Sweerts, who began his career in Brussels before heading to Rome in the mid-seventeenth century, became religiously devout, went mad, and died on the Indian Ocean island of Goa while on a religious pilgrimage to China. The painting incorporates several typologies: the right includes an artist at his easel, a musician, and a few other individuals; the center is littered with numerous fragmentary sculptures from antiquity and by contemporary artists; and the left side shows a seamstress studiously working on the elaborately embroidered hem of a piece of fabric. The darkened varnish obscures and hides additional details including paintings hung high on the wall behind the key figures (likely depictions of Sweerts’ own paintings), and an anteroom with more staffage.

Sweerts painted other images of the artist’s studio (the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the Detroit Institute of Arts) along with the seamstress (Trustees of the Berkeley Will Trust, Berkeley Castle). According to the sale catalogue: “The [present] composition itself is familiar to us by virtue of a number of versions and copies, the best of which – in the Rau Foundation – has variously been described by scholars as by or after Sweerts.” This work at Christie’s, which is a masterpiece, should go into a public collection. 

The powerful and small Rembrandt portraits were last sold 199 years ago – at Christie’s – and have remained in the same collection ever since. Dated 1635, they depict husband and wife Jan Willemsz. van der Pluym and Jaapgen Carels, distant relatives of the artist who were also his friends.

England’s great houses are home to numerous gems, some of which are occasionally sold to pay for debts or fixing roofs, etc. While we don’t know the reason, the Marquess of Northampton is parting ways with an early crucifixion by Fra Angelico, the fifteen-century genius of Florentine painting. Against a gilt background we see the crucified Christ flanked by two airborne angels; Mary Magdalene kneels holding the base of the cross, with the Virgin Mary on one side and Saint John the Baptist on the other. The figure of the Baptist is particularly glorious. One can see the outline (incised into the surface) that surrounds the figure; he wears a gilt-trimmed blue floor-length tunic over which is a gilt-trimmed salmon-colored cloak with beautifully modeled shadowing. His face is an expression of beatific grief and his head is surrounded by a halo of radiating incised lines and circular punchwork.

Another country house, Ragley Hall, is selling a large oil on panel depiction of The Raising of Lazarus by the Dutch Mannerist painter Cornelis Corenlisz van Haarlem. The picture, dated 1602, was commissioned by Jan Matthijsz. Ban who is seen on the far right looking at the viewer and gesturing with his right hand to the standing Christ and with his left hand to the recumbent Lazarus. The figures typologically derive from Italian precedents (though none witnessing the miracle are seen holding their noses against the stench of the decomposing corpse as depicted by Italian artists including Giovanni di Paolo and Sebastiano del Piombo). The scene is grand and theatrical.

A work making its auction debut is the elegant Portrait of Sophia Coymans (1636-1714), three-quarter-length, holding a twig with an orange, before a landscape, by the seventeenth century Dutch painter Bartholomeus van der Helst. The work has stayed within the family since it was commissioned. The young woman depicted wears an extraordinary dress whose details – shimmering silk and satin, delicate lacework, and intricate embroidery – are brilliantly rendered by this skilled portraitist.

In the “Oops” department: a decade ago New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art deaccessioned a bust-length portrait of a lady “attributed to” the early Netherlandish painter Hans Memling; the picture sold for $482,500. Though the work had been considered autograph for much of the twentieth century, the Met’s curator, Maryan Ainsworth, labeled it as “attributed to” the artist in the 1998 Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalogue. Now it returns without that price-killing qualifier and with a hefty estimate of £800,000-1.2 million.

Another work making a return engagement is a triptych depicting the Adoration of the Magi by the early sixteenth century painter known as the Master of the Antwerp Adoration. The period during which the as yet unidentified artist was active was the focus of a 2005-2006 exhibition in Antwerp and Maastricht, ExtravagAnt! A Forgotten Chapter of Antwerp Painting, 1500-1530 (for which there is an excellent, though hard to find catalogue). The picture was sold a decade ago for more than $530,000 to the present owner; it came back to auction on July 29, 2020, with an estimate of £300,000-500,000 and failed to sell. Now it’s back with a £150,000-250,000 estimate. 

One last work at Christie’s that dazzles with details is a small oil on copper (some fourteen by ten inches) by Jan Brueghel the Elder that depicts Hell. The Dutch and Flemish depictions of the underworld – from Van Eyck, to Bosch, Brueghel, and others – often feature a cornucopia of tortured souls, various demons and monsters, metamorphosed figures, vertiginous landscapes, serpents, snakes, the occasional cauldron, fires, flying beasts, and other assorted oddities.

Most have as a nominal focal point some Christian subject matter or classical mythology about which is embroidered the maniacal scenes; this picture is a rare exception. It’s just pure, unconditional hell.

There is less at Sotheby’s that catches my eye, but there are some standouts starting with a large, dramatic, and richly detailed Pentecost from about 1490 by an artist active in Bruges with the provisional name of The Master of the Baroncelli Portraits (which refers to the portraits of Pierantonio di Guaspare Bandini-Baroncelli and his wife Maria Bonciani today in the Ufizzi). The picture was sold at Christie’s on December 7, 2010, to the London-based dealer Jean-Luc Baroni, for nearly £4.2 million (against an estimate of £1.0-1.5 million), from whom it was acquired by the current seller. Now shorn of its discolored varnishes and dirt, it carries a £7-10 million estimate. 

The Virgin is seated in the center surrounded by eleven apostles; in the lower register left and right, dressed in black, are male and female donors, respectively, who presumably commissioned the work. Unfortunately a full coat of arms, which would help identify the two patrons, is not visible. The scene is in the present day and there are vignettes through an open door and window to the town outside; a second door opens into another room. It’s a wonderful image.

Though I’m not keen on Rubens (and even much less so El Greco, and don’t get me started on Renior), the roughly three- by four-foot Saint Sebastian tended by two angels is impressive and commanding. A slightly larger version (with two additional angels) can be found in Rome’s Galleria Corsini. The present work was misattributed when it was last sold, some fifteen years ago, as a work by the Rubens’ younger French contemporary, Laurent de la Hyre. 

Also purchased by Jean-Luc Baroni in 2010 are the pair of Canalettos – Venice, a view of the Piazzetta with the southwest corner of the Doge’s Palace; Venice, a view of the quay of the Dogana – featured in the present sale. Baroni paid $3,890,500 in January 28, 2010 (the same sale had a glorious reliquary by Francesco di Vannuccio)  and sold them to the collector that has put them back on the market where they’re estimated a £3-4 million. We’ll see if they break even (UPDATE: they didn’t).

Along with these two evening sales, there are ancillary auctions of Old Master drawings, lesser priced day sale paintings, sculpture and statuary, along with another trove of works from the Safra Collection sold without reserve.

It’s a lot to absorb.