Lo Spagnoletto’s ‘Prometheus’ from the collection of Barbara Piasecka Johnson, estimated to sell between £800,000-1 million, via Sotheby’s

Old Masters Week begins in London, with auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, and 23 London galleries joining together for the first Masters Painting Week, running July 4-10. running concurrently with Masters Drawing Week, which began in 2001 and offers works on paper from the 14th century to the present day.  Sotheby’s Old Master Paintings Evening Sale takes place tonight, with a special sale of works from the collection of Johnson & Johnson heiress, Barbara Piasecka Johnson. The 51 lots in the Johnson collection evening sale have a low estimate of £5.2 million, with the star lot, Lo Spagnoletto’s ‘Prometheus,’ estimated to bring in between £800,000-1 million. The rest of the evening sale, with 48 lots from other sellers, has a low estimate of £24 million. The four top lots are paintings by Goya, Fragonard, Pieter Brueghel II, and George Stubbs, all with estimates between £2.5-3.5 million. Christie’s Old Masters & 19th Century Art Evening Sale takes place tomorrow, with 66 lots from the 14th century through the late 19th century, designed to encourage cross-over buying. The top lots in that sale are paintings by Michele Giovanni Marieschi and Fra Bartolommeo, both with estimates of £2-3 million. Dealers and the auction houses combined, Master Paintings Week expects to bring in £83.5 million. Strong sales are expected in the wake of the contemporary market’s collapse. While prices for contemporary art dropped 76.2% since May of last year, according to ArtTactic, old masters prices have remained relatively steady, with increased interest by collectors looking for stabilty.

Old Masters & 19th Century Art Evening Sale [Christie’s, Wednesday, July 8, 2009]
Old Master Paintings Evening Sale [Sotheby’s, Tuesday, July 7, 2009]
Master Paintings Week [July 4-10, 2009]
Old masters challenge contemporary art [Telegraph]
Johnson & Johnson Heiress Paintings Top $136.3 Million Art Sale [Bloomberg]
Old Masters, New Interest [Wall Street Journal]
Art market news: Old Master Week [Telegraph]

(more…)

La Surprise, Jean-Antoine Watteau (c. 1718) via Christie’s

Christie’s Old Master Sales that took place last Tuesday, July 8th, featured quite a few ‘lost’ works of art, and generated over $47 million. In addition to the three rediscovered Goya drawings which sold for a combined $8 million, La Surprise by Jean-Antoine Watteau led the Old Masters Sale with a record breaking $24,376,385. The Watteau painting had been lost for almost 200 years, and was assumed to be destroyed until it appeared last year in a private English collection. It is the highest paid price for a French Old Master painting sold at auction to date, and well exceeded it’s $5.9-$9.8 million estimate. The sale also featured artwork by Anthony Van Dyck, Pieter Brueghel II, Thomas Lawrence, William Larkin, Jan Josefsz Van Goyen, and many more notable old masters.

Rediscovered Watteau Masterpiece Sells for Record $24.4 Million [Artdaily]
A Watteau sets record at £12.36 million in an uneven Old Masters sale [IHT]
Lost Watteau Fetches Record; Old Masters Languish at Christie’s [Bloomberg]
ÄŒR buys 8 Liechtenstein works at Christie’s auction [Praguemonitor]
Goya sketches “lost” for 130 years sold at auction [ReutersUK]
Goya Boosts Christie’s Drawings Sale [NYSun]
Francisco de Goya at Christie’s London [Coxsoft]
‘Lost’ Goya drawings sold for £4m [BBC]
Art buyers find ‘lost’ works [LATimes]
Christie’s Auction Results [Christie’s]
Goya Boosts Christie’s Old Masters Drawing Sale on Tuesday [Artobserved]

(more…)