07/11/2001
by Andrew Moore

Bonhams held its sale of Old Master paintings at its Chelsea site on the 31^st of October with an auction which failed to make any great waves with the highest price being a murky battle scene showing The Battle of the Boyne by Jan Wyck (1652-1700) selling for $ 4,370 (€ 4,870) at its low end estimate. The auction saw a sale result of 63% of lots sold but with the majority of lots selling at under $ 1,460 (€ 1,630), this was hardly a cause for celebration. The top value before the sale, was a follower of Titian’s Bacchus and Ariane which unsold against an estimate of $ 14,570-21,850 (€ 16,230-24,340). Of more significance the next day, Bonhams publicly announced the absorption of its bigger UK rival Phillips. With this rival out of the way, Bonhams will be hoping to fill up their sales with better quality works than this time round.

Also on the 1^st of November in London, Sotheby’s held their sale of Old Master paintings at their Bond street premises with a sale managing a sold total by lot of 57% and a sale sum total of £ $ 1.2 million (€ 1.4 million). Percentages of solds dipping below 60% have become the norm of late with auction houses finding it hard to find enough quality lots to fill their catalogues up. In this case Sotheby’s could only offer 118 lots, a small sale by any standards. Hammered lots were low too, with few big rises on the day. The star lot was an early success in the sale. The Madonna and Child, a 64.5 x 50 cm, an oil on panel attributed to Bonifacio de' Pitati, called Bonifacio Veronese (1487-1553) sold for $ 117,240 (€ 130,820) against an estimate of $ 43,660-72,770 (€ 48,730-81,250). The painting had been traditionally attributed to Titian, but after comparison with works by Bonifacio de' Pitati, the painting’s new authorship offered a more commercially realist prospect to bidders. Its sale was also helped by a strong provenance with one previous owner including Prince Stanislaw Poniatowski of Poland who, after seeing his country invaded by Prussia, moved to Rome, where he amassed his Italian collection. The painting was further engraved by Bettelini, in the early 19^th century although back then this image was again wrongly attributed to Titian.

Despite this strong seller it was northern European artists who made the rest of the top prices in the Sotheby’s sale, though mostly just managing to reach above their top end estimates with few huge increases. Mid way through the auction the Leiden artist Abraham Susenier’s (1620-1664) Still life a still life of a peeled lemon on a pewter dish, grapes, and a roemer, all on a table draped with a red cloth made $ 34,210 (€ 38,190) against an estimate of $ 17,000-26,000 (€ 18,940-28,970). Ten lots later the Amsterdam artist Willem Kalf (1619-1693), another Dutch painter best known for his still-lifes was up for sale. Showing a dark interior, with vegetables and a basket in the foreground and a female maidservant in the background, this oil on copper is very untypical of Kalf’s paintings which are more often bright palleted still-lifes. Bearing this in mind the lot remarkably sold for $ 34,210 (€ 38,190) against an estimate of $ 8,740-11,650 (€ 9,740-12,980). Its high price was helped along by it being confirmed as an original Kalf by the RKD art history expert, Fred Meijer.

Another Leiden artist is Pieter de Neyn (1597-1639) whose Landscape with a horseman and figures conversing before a farmhouse dated and signed with the artist’s monogram on the lower right of the wood panel, made a respectable $ 42,597 (€ 47,460) against a pre-sale quote of $ 17,470-26,210 (€ 19,460-29,200). A further high selling Dutch work was the den Haag artist Gerard Hoet’s (1648-1733) Portrait of the botanist Jan Commelin (1629-1692), an oil on canvas measuring 51.7 x 44.6 cm which sold for $ 37,570 (€ 41,950) against an estimate of $ 11,650-17,470 (€ 12,980-19,470). The painting was not of great quality and the painting would have been unsold had not the catalogue stated that the portrait showed an important Dutch botanist of the 17th century. A highly illustrative River landscape with elegant travellers and other figures by a wooden bridge, an oil on canvas attributed to the circle of Giovanni Battista Cimarolia measuring 58.5 x 84 cm made a similar price of $ 37,570 (€ 41,870) against an estimate of $ 14,560-21,850 (€ 16,230-24,350) and that was pretty much it. These results provided scant good news in the sale and does little to deflect attention from the court action which Sotheby’s former chairman, Alfred Taubmann faces on the 7^th of November in New York.