26 17th December 2011 international events


Old Masters with a heavy French accent


ART market activity is traditionally quiet in the UK and mainland Europe in the New Year. Across the Atlantic, though, it is very different. There is no shortage of action in the


US on the fairs and auction front and increasingly this is where many dealers spend much of January and February. New York’s busy season starts right


at the beginning of January with a coin fair and auction series courtesy of the New York International Numismatic Convention. It moves into the Americana sales and


the veteran Winter Antiques Show (plus other fairs) followed by a series of Old Master auctions and the dealer shows of Master Drawings New York. Later in the month and into February


the focus shifts to Florida where there is a long run of antiques fairs in various Miami and Palm Beach locations. There are also plenty of other sales and fairs across the country to tempt Americans and visitors alike. Over the next 12 pages, ROLAND ARKELL, ANNA BRADY and ANNE CRANE preview a selection of forthcoming events.


OLD MASTERS As soon as Sotheby’s and Christie’s have got the Americana sales under their belt, they move on to their auctions of Old Master Paintings and Drawings. From January 25 to 27, both houses


are busy mounting half a dozen different sessions, each with particular strengths . On January 25, Sotheby’s are offering


what they reckon will be one of the richest and most varied selections of Old Master drawings they have assembled for


Above: one side of a double-sided drawing by Watteau – $120,000-160,000 at Sotheby’s.


many years, swollen by a 38-lot group of mostly 18th century French works from a European collection. Typifying le gout français, the sale will


include works by many of the blue-chip names in this field: the likes of Jean- Antoine Watteau, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, François Boucher and Hubert Robert. The collection’s highlight is a double-


sided sheet of Watteau’s working drawings. One side features two carefully drawn studies of elegantly costumed women; the other, smaller, more rapidly drawn figures. It is guided at $120,000- 160,000. From a different vendor comes a


much earlier highlight, a rare and very well preserved, early Renaissance portrait head of a young man attributed to the


Florentine artist Piero del Pollaiolo, dated to the late 1460s or early 1470s. It is rare for early works of this size and


condition to appear on the market and as such it carries a $300,000-400,000 guide. Sotheby’s sale of Old Master paintings


and sculpture on January 26 will include a small, 11½ x 8in (29 x 21cm), gold-ground Italian panel by the Sienese artist Simone Martini that would have formed the righthand wing of a devotional diptych representing The Annunciation. Dated to around 1334-6, just before


the artist left his native city for Avignon, the work was part of the famous art collection formed in Brussels by Adolphe Stoclet (1871-1949) and housed in the eponymous house designed for him by Josef Hoffmann. The work then passed down by


descent through the family and was acquired by the vendor on the Paris art market in the late 20th century. Estimated by Sotheby’s at $3m-4m,


the much-exhibited work’s attribution has been the subject of considerable art historical research and debate. However, recent study has led to a renewed consensus attributing it to Martini. The sale also features a 17¾ x 11in


Above: Madonna and Child by Hans Memling – $6m-8m at Christie’s.


Left: The Madonna Annunciate by Simone Martini – $3-4m at Sotheby’s.


(45 x 28cm), arched-top oil on panel of St Jerome in the Wilderness by Fra Bartolomeo from the collection of Dodie Rosenkrans (estimate $1.5-2m) and a 20in x 2ft 1½ in (50 x 67cm) oil-on-copper still life of sweetmeats and glasses on a table by Osias Beert the Elder (c.1580-1624) estimated at $1.8m-2.5m. www.sothebys.com


Above: The Good Mother by Jean Honoré Fragonard – $5m-7m at Christie’s.


THE FRENCH ACCENT French taste is an important feature at Christie’s, too, where the auctioneers will be staging their first Art of France sale on January 25. Devoted entirely to French art,


predominantly from the 18th century, this new category in the series is, say the auctioneers, driven by the success of that market among new collectors. Included amongst the 45-odd lots is


Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s (1732-1806) The Good Mother, a 19 x 15½in (49 x 39cm) oval oil on canvas estimated at $5m-7m. The auctioneers’ Old Masters sale


on January 25 will include a hitherto- unpublished Rubens oil sketch on panel measuring 7½ x 11½in (44 x29cm) of the Assumption of the Virgin estimated at $2-3m. Its strongest stylistic links are to the


artist’s altarpiece made for the Church of the Carthusians in Brussels but now in the Lichtenstein Museum, Vienna, and two other oil sketches now in the Courtauld and the Yale University Art Gallery. There is also an 11 x 8¾in (28 x 22cm)


bust-length octagonal oil on copper portrait of a young man in doublet and ruff by Thomas de Keyser (1596/7-1667), a tour de force of skilled brushwork. This has a 19th century provenance to


the Old Masters belonging to Henri Louis Bischoffsheim at Bute House and was purchased in 1927 by Gerard d’Aquin, who was agent for William Randolph Hearst. It carries a $300,000-500,000 estimate. The star of the sale will be a 7in (18cm)


diameter circular oil on panel of the Virgin and Child by Hans Memling, one of just two known works by the 15th century master in private hands. On a gold ground, the small devotional work, painted in what the auctioneers describes as a “self consciously traditional style”, dates from around 1490. It is one of around 15 examples of


this subject Memling is known to have painted. The work is guided at $6m-8m. www.christies.com


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