An outcry by Irish cultural and business elite has led to a postponed Old Masters sale at Christie’s, which was planning to sell a selection of works taken from a crumbling home outside of Dublin.  An initial offer by a group of donors to purchase the pieces led to a hold on the sale, which included works by Rubens and Francesco Guardi. (more…)
Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait Of A Young Man With A Book, Via Christie’s
Old Masters Week has concluded in New York, following a set of auctions over the past few days that saw mixed results at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s. (more…)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will open its newly renovated European Galleries this Thursday, and the New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl has published a brief review of the new wing, praising its appointments and rehang. Â “I had an eerie sense, while surveying the results the other day, that here was a brand new major institution which, somehow, had plundered the holdings of the Met.” Â He writes. (more…)
Attentive curators for the Metropolitan Museum of Art made quite a find at this past January’s Old Masters Week auctions, buying an authentic sketch by Jacques-Louis David for $840.  The drawing, closely resembling David’s The Death of Socrates, was attributed to an anonymous artist, but the hawk-eyed curators took notice immediately.  “The drawing style is typical of David. It was obvious we had to have it.† Said Met drawings curator George Goldner. (more…)
Late art historian and collector Denis Mahon has left 57 works, valued at over £100 million, to the British nation, including many works by Italian masters Guercino, Guido Reni and Luca Giordano, under one condition: Britain must never sell them or charge admission for their viewing.  Mr. Mahon reportedly built his collection without paying more than £2,000 for most of his works, and was adamant on their public accessibility.  If these conditions are not met, public arts institution The Art Fund is legally able to take them back; an attempt to “keep up the pressure for governments to do the right thing by museums and galleries” says Art Fund Chief Executive Stephen Deuchar. (more…)
Bernd Neumann, the Minister of Culture for Germany, stated in an interview this past weekend that a new museum will be constructed in Berlin to house the city’s collection of Old Masters in the next 4 to 6 years.  Concerns over the collection of works by Rembrant, Botticelli, Vermeer, Rubens and others had arisen in the face of major museum renovations and limited funds. (more…)
Collectors seeking iconic works at the Old Masters sales in London this week have led to uneven results: at Sotheby’s a bidder paid $47.9 million for “Head of a Young Apostle,” by Raphael; at Christie’s, only 29 out of 54 lots sold, bringing in $18.6 million, just over low estimate. “The name is not enough. It has to be a top example by an important master,” said Jonathan Green of the Richard Green Gallery in London. Additional speculation is that international, non-Western buyers are not interested in the historical subject matter from a cultural standpoint. (more…)
Plans to replace 3,000 old masters with modern art in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie have left many local fans of classical art, and art historians, incensed. The galleries will be filled with an extensive collection of surrealist and expressionist art donated by a billionaire industrialist named Heiner Pietzsch, who gave his collection under the condition that it be displayed in its entirety. The old masters collection–including works by Brueghel, Raphael, and Caravaggio–will be temporarily housed in the Bode Museum, with no plans announced for a permanent home.
‪ ‪The upcoming Christie’s Old Masters Sale in London in July has an overall value of $30 million, with A Bust of a Man in a Gorget and Cap (1626-27) at an estimate of $19 million alone. In a bid to attract new collectors, Christie’s will send the Old Masters on a promotional tour through Doha, Moscow, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and New York. [AO Newslink]
