26/11/2001
by Andrew Moore

Finarte’s sale in Milan of Old Master paintings on the 20^th of November saw a mostly flat sale with little competitive bidding in the saleroom (only 41% of lots found buyers). The star lot for the evening, Saint Monaca with two children was a small and very rare tempera on board by Paolo Uccello, measuring a diminutive 79 x 35 cm. Forming the right hand wing of an unidentified triptych, it came from private hands and was the first time in 50 years that an authenticate Uccello was on the art market. On any given day in New York or London this painting could make around $ 3-5 million and more. However Italy’s art market weren’t stretching themselves, and Finarte’s comparatively low expectations of $ 1.13 million (€ 1.29 million) weren’t far wrong, selling for a modest $ 1.39 million (€ 1.58 million: including buyers commission of 16 %).

Finarte’s press department lauded this as the most expensive work of art ever to be sold at auction in Italy, just topping a pair of altar pieces hammered at Semenzato at the Carlo de Carlo sale in Florence, in April 2001 (Bartolomeo Bulgarini, hammer price $ 1.24 million, € 1.4 million). A cause for celebration? Certainly: it amounted to nearly half of the sale total price for the auction house, but you wouldn’t have guessed it during the auction. Placed bids were read like the news from the rostrum and such was the dry style of the auctioneer, buyer interest and competition nullified, for this and many of the other lots. The no-win situation was compounded by Finarte stating that foreign export on the Uccello had been barred by the Italian State, and so competition was local and minimal. Finarte’s decision to exhibit a selection of these works in Mason’s Yard in London at the beginning of November (just round the corner from Christie’s headquarters), was thus surely an exercise in publicity, rather than direct salesmanship to the international ‘trade’.

This export ban is unlikely to change under the present political administration in Italy. Only two months ago the Italian Under Secretary of Culture, Vittorio Sgarbi, tried to block the export to the UK of Renaissance paintings for a temporary show. The works were component panels of Masaccio’s most famous work held at the National Gallery, London. Bought by the British National Art Collections Fund in 1916, the altarpiece was commissioned by a Pisan notary, Ser Giuliano degli Scarsi and painted in 1426 for the chapel of Saint Julian in Santa Maria del Carmine, Pisa. Despite Sgarbi relenting and the show going ahead (closing on the 11^th of November), the opposition to seeing Italy’s cultural heritage being traded and transported has wide support at home and so despite the tempting hammer prices, anyone buying Old Masters in Italy at a cut price in the hope of foreign resale, will have a long wait before such works can be exported.

With that said, Sebastiano del Piombo’s Portrait of a young woman, got a lot of the audience chatting during the sale as it was offered up. Estimated at $ 43,800-52,570 (€ 50,000-60,000) the 38 x 28 oil on slate painting, though not in great condition, made a hammer price of $ 65,600 (€ 74,890) after a telephone duel. The bottom right of the slate was damaged, with an area of restoration infilling the loss, itself painted over. Another portrait of a woman by contemporary Jacopino del Conte made $ 104,100 (€ 118,780) within its estimate to a phone bidder, but despite making more money, it was the del Piombo which created the stir of the evening, even more than the Uccello. A large oval Holy Family with angels playing musical instruments by Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709) made $ 50,860 (€ 57,840) against an estimate of $ 30,050-43,810 (€ 40,000-50,000) and a nice quality 15^th century gold ground altarpiece by the Master of the Capella Bracciolini made $ 81,460 (€ 92,960) against an estimate of $ 52,580-65,720 (€ 60,000-75,000).

Another work which would have been highly sought after abroad, strangely saw little competition. The adoration of the shepherds by the Dutch artist Matthias Stomer, was in excellent condition and had been the subject of a 1976 article in The Burlington Magazine. It could only sell for $ 108,850 (€ 123,950) below its estimate of $ 109,780-131,720 (€ 125,000-150,000). More tempting for locals was a work by the Milanese artist Carlo Francesco Nuvolone entitled Charity (La Carita), (oil on canvas, 122 x 92.5 cm) The painting showing a buxom mother wet-nursing a baby wrapped in swaddle, and made $ 40,820 (€ 46,480) against an estimate of $ 35,120-43,900 (€ 40,000-50,000) for the Milan artist. A pair of landscapes (A port with classical ruins and Landscape with an ancient fortress) by the Veneto artist Luca Carlevarijs provided the last noteworthy lot in the sale making $ 181,400 (€ 206,580) at its low-end estimate. After this sold, there was a mass rush for the door, despite being three quarters of the way through the sale. The most notable loss of the evening was Alessandro Magnasco (in collaboration with Antonio Francesco Peruzzini) - a double landscape of a penitent monk in the wilderness (both oval oil on canvases, 98 x 134 cm) which was unsold against an estimate of $ 70,250-87,820 (€ 80,000-100,000). Sotheby’s Milan have a landscape by the artist as one of their star lots in December in Milan, and the artist’s heavy handed loose handling-style may just prove too challenging for some tastes.