Old Master Auctions

Sotheby's and Christie's dominate high-end art auctions, but Bonham's has some particularly interesting pictures this month. There are no multi-million pound masterpieces, but some good and intriguing mid-range pictures with enticing estimates. My favourite is a full-size contemporary copy of Poussin's The Israelites Crossing the Red Sea that they attribute to Le Brun. Not quite an original work of art, but the £25k-£35k estimate is maybe a hundred times less than what a Le Brun of this scale and quality might fetch, and a thousand times less than a Poussin. It's worth £25k just for the 1830s Smith & Son frame.

This Dutch still life is a bit of a problem picture. It's attributed to Pieter Claesz, although some scholars favour the much less esteemed Hendrick van Heemskirk. The odd thing is that the left hand part seems very high quality, but other elements are quite slovenly. It's a union of a £200k-£300k picture with a £2k-£3k picture. They compromised with an estimate of £20k-£30k. You just need to spend the savings on a tapestry to hide the bad bits.

My other favourites from Bonham's were a lovely Jan Asselijn is estimated at £12k-£18k, a Cavallino £20k-£30k and a newly-discovered Andrea Sacchi at £250k-£350k.

The highlight of this season is a picture I've wanted to see for a very long time: a masterpiece by the Master of St Veronica, an anonymous but enormously talented early Cologne artist. It's the best thing in the London sales, both very rare and imporant and very beautiful and moving. I love the idiosyncrasy of early German art, the jovial Christ delighted by his resurrection, transcendence made imminent. The estimate of £1.2m - £1.8m seems paltry. It's not the most 'commercial' picture, and the central figures are a bit abraded, but that's still very little for something so fabulous. It represents an imporant moment in art history that's poorly represented in many museums. The National Gallery ought to go for it, but I don't believe they will. The Getty and the Met are obvious contenders, plus maybe Cleveland or the Louvre. It's been widely published and known about, and it's an obvious gap in many collections. Museums should be ready to pounce, and I'm surprised a sale wasn't brokered before the auction. A £1.8m low estimate disrespects the artist's genius; isn't it enough that we've forgotten the poor chap's name? I really hope that later this week we'll hear that it's gone to a great museum.

Sotheby's also has a glorious early Jan Brueghel the elder (£1.8m-£2.5m; really nice little picture, but this shouldn't be more expensive than the Master of St Veronica!), a Rembrandt Head of Christ (£6m-£8m) and an interesting pair of pictures of beggars by Giordiano (£150k-£200k).

The best things aren't always the most valuable, and one of my favourites at Christie's is this Ecce Homo, vaguely described as 'Italo-Flemish seventeenth century', which is a technical art history term for "we're not quite sure". I don't know either, but I love it. It needs to be seen from below, the figures looking down at us. It's a very Roman image, reminiscent of Mantegna more than Flemish art. If I had space I'd certainly be bidding against the enticing estimate of just £5k-£8k.

Christie's has the Eric Albada Jelgersma collection of mainly Dutch and Flemish pictures. He had some fine pictures, but his taste is not mine. More appealing to me is this Antwerp school Lamentation with an unusually horrific scalped Christ (£250k-£350k). A lot of similar pictures were painted in Antwerp, and the quality is often really good. But I wonder how many people would want to live with that rather harrowing image. More conventionally popular is a magnificent English-period Van Dyck of a beautiful young Princess Mary (£5m-£8m). Another version is at Sotheby's, given to Van Dyck and studio, but not a patch on the Christie's masterpiece.

The other highlight of the season is a sale from Rugby school, which is all much to my taste. The old master drawings include some artists I especially like: Orsi, Cades, Testa, plus a rare Lucas van Leyden, a Correggio and a superb Jan Brueghel the elder. Giuseppe Cades is an eighteenth century Italian draughtsman who deserves to be better known. Three Bishop Saints above is estimated at £15k-£25k.

Contrasting Rubens portraits at London auctions

Sotheby's and Christie's each offered Rubens portraits at their auctions last week. The Christie's picture, Clara Serena Rubens (above) had been recently deaccessioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and sold by Sotheby's in 2013 as the work of a follower. Back then it made $626,500 against an estimate of $20k-$30k. It's been promoted hard as a Rubens, including spells on loan to the Rubenshuis and the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. A dealer described the estimate of £3m-£5m as low, and predicted that she would 'break records'. It didn't sell.

I saw it at the Rubenshuis, exhibited alongside certain works by Rubens, and didn't think it stood up. It's a really endearing image and beautiful in parts, but the ambiguously sculptural treatment of the bust seems wrong for an intimate portrait of his daughter, and the application of paint seemed quite different from the other Rubens in the exhibition I saw. I'm not a Rubens specialist, and I know that some thought it was right even after seeing the Rubenshuis show. But a lot of Rubens specialists weren't quoted in the catalogue and haven't committed a view either way. Scholars are cautious of criticising new attributions, which are often uncertain rather than plainly wrong. But I am uneasy about museums showing controversial works with full attributions just before they're sold.

The Rubens at Sotheby's, which I wrote about in my preview post, was unquestioned and made £5,416,500 against an estimate of £3m-£4m. The market gave its verdict on the relative merits of the two portraits. The wonderful portrait attributed to Dürer - my favourite in the Sotheby's sale - made £1,150,000, over a cautious £300k-£400k estimate. It's still good value for something so rare and so good. Last time I can recall a plausible Dürer offered at auction was the Portrait of Michael Wohlgemut from the Schäfer collection at Sotheby's in December 1992, where it was unsold against an estimate then of £600k-£800k.

 

Sotheby's had a lot of pictures to my taste. I've always liked the mysterious Jacobus Vrel, and I was pleased to see one of his best pictures sell for £838k (estimated £300k-£400k). Cassone panels are often disappointing because they get so damaged, kicked and scrubbed over the centuries. The Liberale da Verona Triumph of Chastity was one of the most beautiful and well-preserved to appear on the market, and deservedly made £1,330,000 (estimate £400k-£600k, detail above). I was more surprised to see four South Netherlandish panels from the early fifteenth century sell strongly for £2.65m (est £1m-£1.5m). They're enormously rare, but I thought not of the finest artistic quality. I preferred a really fine Adoration of the Magi by a follower of Van der Goes, which made just £250k (est £200k-£300k).

At Christie's an attractive Gerard David Holy Family made £4,846,250 (est £1.5m-£2.5m) and a major portrait by Ludovico Carracci that emerged in 2005 made £5,071,250 (est £3.5m-£5m).

In drawings, Turner's spectacular Lake of Lucerne made £2,050,000 at Sotheby's. I thought it would do better. That's less than half the Blue Rigi, which is a steep discount for a less sexy title. Van Goyen drawings are common, but an especially beautiful one sold for £68,750 against a £20k-£30k estimate. There's a strong market for the very best drawings. The very best drawing sold last week, in my view, was the incredible early Fuseli of The Faerie Queen that made £728,750 (est £150k-£250k), which is both a high price and a bargain.

There were a couple of high prices in the day sales. At Sotheby's an attractive and commercial Netscher made £274k against £60k-£80k estimate. At Christie's a thirteenth century Tuscan Madonna and Child enthroned with angels (pictured) sold for £992,750 against a £30k-£50k estimate.

Auction bargains

The glitzy evening sales are a precious opportunity to see masterpieces that might not return to public view for a long time. There's usually a handful of optimistic attributions and bad-but-commercial pictures, too. The day sales are more of a mixed bag, but prices start really low and quality rises really quite high. I know that objectively £5k or £10k is a lot of money, but art has always been expensive, and collectors at every price point make sacrifices. Put off replacing the car (or cycle instead), choose cheaper holidays, plan to work a little longer, or just sell the kids. A lot of these pictures are within reach for many people.

I like the early Netherlandish and early Germany pictures. Some of the studios turned out high quality pictures in some quantity. These Old Testament prophets from the Swabian school are great! Just £40k-£60k for the pair at Sotheby's. They have the same estimate on a beautiful Annunciation from the circle of the Master of the Housebook, just a foot and a half high. Look for pictures from the 'Antwerp School' for bargains. There are a few conventional names given to identifiable groups of pictures, but a lot of pictures from Antwerp studios are unidetified but often high quality. This St Jerome is particularly nice, with an excellent landscape, estimated at just £20k-£30k at Sotheby's. A little later is a large Martyrdom of St Sebastian (£25k-£35k at Christie's) by Cornelis van Haarlem, an artist of mixed quality, but rather under-rated in my view.

Christie's says this is from the circle of Anthonis Mor. It's not the only attribution I disagree with, but wherever it's from this is a fine portrait (£10k-£15k). It stands up well displayed just off the main gallery at Christie's, among the evening sale highlights. Another anonymous picture is this fine Roman school Head of a Man, which will be worth much more than £7k-£10k if someone can identify the artist.

Rubens's prolific studio produced a lot of good pictures. There's a huge price change between 'Rubens' and 'studio', so a big incentive to over-attribute. On the other hand, pictures given to the studio can be cheap. Christie's has a version of the Washington Daniel in the Lions' Den without Daniel, by a follower of Rubens (£25k-£35k). And let's face it, it's the lions we really love! Big kitty cats; Internet, do your thing.

Do have a look at the catalogues; they're big sales with lots of interesting pictures. At the lower end, this Nicolò Giolfino St Roch is quite charming at £10k-£15k at Christie's, and Sotheby's has a Jean-Baptiste-Marie Huët portrait for £7k-£10k. A beautiful Ceruti still life of chestnuts is estimated at £40k-£60k at Sotheby's. I like it more than a lot of evening sale still lifes.

Summer auction highlights

It's bronze-o-rama this month. Really great bronzes rarely come up for sale, but this month there are three in London. My favourite is by the greatest sculptor of small bronzes, Giambologna. The Dresden Mars (£3m-£5m, above) is a heart-stopping masterpiece. Exquisitely detailed and with beautiful patina, it's also a consummate summary of mannerism with its subtle and not-so-subtle distortions. The massive foreshortened hand is marvellously expressive with detailed veins and an exaggerated radius bone that looks almost like a ganglion cyst. The calf muscles are over-sized, and more distortions become evident when you study it. But the effect is artistic rather than awkward.

Sculptures are hard to display. They need protection from curious hands, but they can't really be appreciated in vitrines. Sculptures are often seen as the poor relations of paintings, and don't get the same curatorial attention. That's why auction viewings are so worthwhile. The auctioneers do a much better job of showing their wares, and you can really appreciate the quality of this masterpiece. It's a logical acquisition for the Getty, which has developed a choice collection of sculptures. I hope they get it, because they display their collection so well.

Christie's also leads with bronzes. There's a great group of Hercules overcoming Achelous by Tacca, an artist in Giambologna's studio. A gilt version of this is in the Wallace Collection, and comparing the two really emphasises the quality of the Christie's bronze. Estimate is 'on request', circa £5m. They also have a magnificent rediscovered masterpiece by Giradon, a large bronze of Louis XIV on Horseback (£7m-£10m).

The picture that grabbed my attention was this outstanding Portrait of a Man against a green background, plausibly attributed to Dürer. I don't know if it's by him or one of his close followers like Schongauer, but whoever it's by, it is a masterpiece. Condition is clearly compromised; the background looks horrible. It might have been overpainted and then cleaned. But the face itself is well-preserved and fabulous quality. This kind of picture is rare outside Germany and the estimate of £300k-£400k is modest, reflecting its small size and the diminished impact from damage to the background. The excellent catalogue entry gives more background on disputes over its attribution, which is welcome. Continuing with the northern Renaissance, Sotheby's also has a rare picture by one of my favourite artists, Hans Baldung. The Holy Family with Five Angels (£2.5m-£3.5m) is rather worn in the key parts, but other elements are still finely preserved. And they almost never appear for sale. Hugo van der Goes is another rare and prized master. The Adoration of the Magi at Sotheby's is only by a follower, but I like it a lot. And over 2m wide, it's unusually large and is good value at the estimate of £200k-£300k.

 

Speaking of attribution disputes, Rubens was enormously prolific and pictures by him and his studio often appear at auction and there's sometimes a fine line between the master and his school. The best this time is a fine Portrait of a Venetian Nobleman at Sotheby's (£3m-£4m), which looks even better in the flesh, with an ambiguous sense of swagger and vulnerability. Christie's has a newly-attributed portrait with a slightly higher estimate (£3m-£5m), which I don't love. Christie's also has a fine large studio version of a lion's den, derived from the Washington Daniel in the Lion's Den, without the lions (£25k-£35k).

At Christie's there's a fine large Zanobi Strozzi Last Judgment which represents Fra Angelico's beautiful style (£2-£4m) and a superb early Spanish masterpiece by Miguel Ximénez, also of the Last Judgment (£600k-£800k). My favourite is a small Virgin and Child in a Walled Garden by the Master of the Triburtine Sibyl (£400k-£600k, above).

A tiny Jan Brueghel the elder, A Wide Village Street in summer with carts, villagers and gentlefolk (the title says it all) reminds me that he's a really great artist (£2.5m-£3.5m, Sotheby's). Not all his pictures rise to this level, and weaker ones appear at auction quite often. It's a beautiful and easily appreciated picture, but it's also a sophisticated image. Perspective is cleverly distorted; compare the trees on the left and the right. It's a trick used by Rubens, but on a tiny scale. When you see lots of pictures of this type you come to appreciate how hard it is to integrate those seemingly-random figures into a harmonious whole. It's a really great picture.


Sotheby's has a sleeper in reverse. This Ecce Homo is described as Venetian School, early sixteenth century, with an estimate of £30k-£50k. The catalogue note doesn't mention that it was previously offered in New York in 2009 with full attribution to Lorenzo Lotto, endorsed by Keith Christiansen of the Met, with estimate of $400k-$600k. It's still a fine, unusual picture. I wonder if it would have been better marketed without the initial Lotto attribution, encouraging the trade to bid it up as a sleeper.

There's a dearth of great drawings at this week's sales, but each auction house has a few spectacular things. There's an overwhelming early Fuseli at Christie's, The Faerie Queen appears to Prince Arthur (£150k-£250k, above). The most fascinating is a twenty-foot panorama of London just after the Napoleonic Wars, by Pierre Prévost (£200k-£300k at Sotheby's).

These are the big-money highlights, though not so big compared to contemporary art. I'll write a separate post tomorrow about the day sales and antiquities sales, where there are some really good pictures with really modest estimates.

Christmas shopping: old masters at Sotheby's and Christie's

I hear there were some expensive things at recent contemporary sales, but I don't pay much attention to such vulgarities. The real action is at the Old Master auctions. They were queuing around the block last month at Christie's to see something from the contemporary sale, but few people visit the free, public views for the old master auctions.

I've always wanted to see a version of Titian's St Margaret that's in a lot of the Titian catalogues, listed as in the Kisters Collection, Kreuzlingen. Kisters pictures have been coming onto the market over the past few years, and the one I'd wanted to see is on preview at Sotheby's this week, ahead of its sale in New York in January. Alas, I was disappointed. There are flashes of brilliance, but it's got nothing on the Prado version. Rightly attributed to 'Titian and studio', the estimate of $2-3m tells you how much Titian is in it. Very rich people can bid anything to the sky if the both want it, and this might just attract the attention of gazillionaires. But $3m or so is a prudent estimate and a fair price for a big and striking picture with a bit of Titian in it.

Another Kisters picture is much more exciting: a Velazquez I didn't know at all! It's a collaboration with Pietro Martire Neri, but the face looks all Velazquez. Estimate is $3-4m, which seems cheap for just the face. You get the rest gratis. There's also a gorgeous double portrait attributed to Bartholomäus Zeitblom (surely too good for school, and who else?), and a Virgin and Child with St Anne by Holbein the Elder coming up in New York. Wowsers!

Winter 2017 is the Northern Renaissance season, largely thanks to the Kreuzlingen collection. Other than Cranach, these guys don't come to market often enough to estimate reliably. They're not especially fashionable, and for reasons I can't fathom museums don't generally buy them. In the past few decades the Getty has bought a few, the National Gallery in Washington has bought a wonderful Calvary by the wonderfully-named 'Master of the Death of St Nicholas of Münster' and UK museums have bought ... nichts. I shudder to think of what they could have had for the cost of all those British portraits.

This Betrayal of Christ is by an unknown master from the Lower Rhine, c. 1510-15. It's an exceptional and beautiful picture that is worthy of the National Gallery, estimated at £200k-£300k at Sotheby's. Lack of comparisons makes estimating it difficult, and good Northern pictures have tended to sell strongly recently. But for 'relative value' in the old master world, this is my pick. Tremendous quality, with such characterful figures.

Another potential bargain is a panel that might be by Van der Vliet at Christie's, which needs attention. I don't know the artist well enough to judge, but the quality looks high. A much larger version sold for a lot of money a few years ago. Rohan McCulloch pointed out on Twitter that this one made £5k at a regional auction not long ago, against a low estimate. It's interesting that the buyer flipped it to a major auction house without restoring it. That might mean that the buyer couldn't get an expert endorsement (seducing experts is a crucial skill in the art market). I think it's more likely that the buyer thought it the best way to maximise risk-adjusted return. Dealers are keen to buy 'sleepers', because it makes them look smart and the re-sale price won't be anchored by the auction price. The £12k-18k estimate is way too low if it's right. But cleaning it is a cost and a risk; it might not be as good as it seems, and it might not be accepted. Even if it is, there's a risk that the right buyers aren't there on the day, and trade buyers won't pay full price for a fully-authenticated work. If I were a cynic, I'd be tempted to under-attribute and tip off potential buyers as a deliberate marketing strategy.

Speaking of cynical marketing strategy, I wonder if this picture would sell better as three or four fragments. The catalogue entry says it's a clever exercise in distorted perspective, but I don't think the composition works. In real life it looks much better than the photo. I'm entranced by the details, like a camp proto-mannerist take on Andrea Mantegna. It's by the Master of the Figdor St Eustache, £300k-£400k at Sotheby's.

My favourite Christie's picture is early German, too. This Massacre of the Innocents is by the Master of the Dinkensbühl Altarpiece, another wonderful moniker (beaten only by the Master of the Kitten). Wonderfully theatrical characterisation of calculated thuggery overseen by a sociopathically impassive king, wicked dog, and distraught mothers. Estimate is just £400-£600k, which is surely within the reach of many museums. Christie's also has an exciting rediscovery: a rare picture by the Prague mannerist Bartholomäus Spranger, Mercury carrying Psyche to Mount Olympus (£400k-£600k). Tragically it's rather abraded, like so many of his pictures that were presumably looted during the Thirty Years' War. It's still a rare and important picture that would be a fine acquisition by a major museum like the Met or the National Gallery in Washington, representing a school of art that bloomed brightly but briefly.

As ever, there are eye-watering gems in the sub-£100k range, which barely buys a snotty handkerchief by the trendy contemporaries. Adriaen van Stalbemt will never be a household name, but this picture of The building of the Tabernacle with the Israelites sewing the curtains was good enough to be included as an Elsheimer in an old catalogue raisonné. It had been downgraded by 1977, when it sold for about £65k in inflation-adjusted terms. In 1977 inflation was nearly 16%, income tax was 83% above £20k and globalisation hadn't begun. Today it's estimated at £60k-£80k.

I'm not a great admirer of Victorian pictures, but this Landseer sketch is gorgeous, at £50k-£70k. I wish I knew more about sculpture. There seems to be a gap in the mid-market, with wealthy collectors paying millions for the very best, but bargains in the low-five-figure range. Sotheby's is previewing a tremendous collection of drawings including a Fra Bartolommeo landscape from the album sold in the 1950s and a couple of Watteaus. They're being sold in New York in January, and I'll say more about them then. In the meantime, I'm off to buy some lottery tickets.

How not to clean pictures: the risk of gels

An art dealer has taken down the video nasty of this picture being scrubbed 'clean' with a harsh brush while gel drips across the cleaned area. You can still see it here as of today. The American Institute for Conservation issued a critical statement and conservators were furious. I don't know who was cleaning the picture, but a conservator on social media calls him 'Scrubby Jelly Pants'. The vigorous scraping with a harsh brush is horrifying, and obviously risks damage. We'll never know how much harm was done; working that quickly makes assessment impossible. In the image above the uncleaned eyebrow looks clearer than the cleaned one, despite the varnish. Of course it's possible that it's an effect of light or they were touched up by a later restorer, but the most likely explanation is damage to the original paint. But although the risk of mechanical abrasion is obvious, my concern here is with the relatively new use of gels in conservation.

Gels allow better control of solvents, restricting penetration. Conservators worry that residues could continue to act on painting long after the restoration, but extensive research suggests that the risk is low. My concern is slightly different: it's that new techniques encourage over-confidence. The defence of Scrubby Jelly Pants has been to assert that gels can be tailored to remove only varnish. Bullish conservators have always claimed only to remove varnish; no one wants to say they're removing original paint. But it's just not true. There's always a risk of removing original paint, particularly when it's applied as glazes that might be made of pigment suspended in varnish. Gels are not magic, and cleaning pictures is not an exact science.

Psychologists speculate that we have a 'risk budget', so we respond to new safety measures by taking more risk. Make us wear seatbelts, and we'll drive faster. The other risk is that new techniques are over-sold. There's a mountain of research on the benefits and uses of gels in conservation, but none of it says you can mix a Magic Gel that can be safely slavered over a picture and scrubbed away without risk. One of the main benefits of gels is the controlled application of solvent; in this video it is so thin it runs down the surface. If it were truly the case that the solvent can only dissolve varnish, and not affect underlying paint, it would not be necessary to apply it in a controlled way. The whole point of gels is to mitigate that risk.

The Hippocratic Oath - "first, do no harm" - is not appropriate in conservation. It would mean doing nothing. Old pictures, unlike people, do not heal or regenerate. Over time we can only ever have less of the original artwork. The challenge is to minimise the damage and weigh it against the benefits. Conservation is essential and desirable; a great masterpiece hidden behind dirt and varnish can't be enjoyed by anyone. But the idea of doing irreversible damage to irreplaceable art is horrifying, so the temptation is to deny the trade-off. I recently heard the leader of a major conservation project assert that there was 'no risk' involved. That either misunderstands risk, or mistrusts her audience to understand the trade-off.

Conservation has become highly professionalised and sophisticated. Good conservators use artistic knowledge and skill in the application of advanced scientific techniques that are extensively tested and debated. But their work is not widely appreciated outside the field. There ought to be a better quality debate about the costs and benefits of conservation projects, rather than spin about 'zero risk, all benefit'. The failure to have that debate is part of what creates the space for videos like this to go viral, and for bad conservation techniques to thrive.

Brian Sewell Sale

A large part of Brian Sewell's private collection was sold at Christie's this week, and it has come in for quite a battering from envious (and often ignorant) critics. The New Statesman even asserts that he didn't own a Hockney. He did, and it's pictured above. Edward Lucie-Smith says it "looks like the drearier sort of fairly competent, totally conservative semi-amateur painting that might just about scrape into an R.A. Summer exhibition today". On the contrary, it's far too good for today's R.A. summer show. It's a beautiful and surprising picture with a marvelous sense of colour; you can't appreciate those subtle pinks in reproduction. It was well bought for just £32,500, which would barely cover the artist resale rights on one of his recent monstrosities.

The sale made over £3.7m. That should impress Lucie-Smith, who seems to think that you judge an art collection by its monetary appreciation, as if it's all about guessing future monied taste. I was more impressed by its personal quality. He wasn't curating a memorial to himself, or playing the market. This is a man who requested a pauper's burial for himself. He bought widely, and supported artists of his own generation like Craxton and Minton who remain cheap, but were often rather good. He had a particular affinity for Eliot Hodgkin's beautiful still lifes, which I adore too. These pictures were bought for Sewell's own enjoyment. They weren't meant to impress other critics, and not all of them impressed me. But there were many lovely 'minor' pictures that were really well chosen: a charming picture of an orange tree, a fabulous picture of a building destroyed in battle, and a striking twentieth century interior, maybe by Malcolm Drummond.

He did have some remarkable masterpieces, too. The fabulous Daniele da Volterra drawing of Dido sold to a museum (the Met?) for £797k against an upper estimate of £150k. My personal favourite was this design by Peruzzi, which I thought cheap at £353k. Two Stomers were unsold. I confess that I didn't care for them. I find him the least satisfying of the Dutch Caravaggists, and a lot of his pictures have been on the market recently. But the superb oil sketch by Andrea Sacchi (above) sold for £233k against an upper estimate of £80k. I'd love it to have gone to the National Gallery.

It was a long sale with quite disparate works, and there were bargains along the way. Some things might have done better in specialist sales. Perhaps this wonderful Mervyn Peake drawing (above) would have sold better in a literature sale. Less than five grand for such an emotive and beautiful drawing by an important writer and illustrator, created at a key moment in World War II seems a steal. But it was a joy to see Brian Sewell's things as a group, and get a new insight into this brilliant critic and connoisseur.

The Old Master Market: Dead, or merely resting?

Picture: Wikipedia

Bendor Grosvenor has rightly debunked a number of myths around the supposed collapse of the old master market. I think he's spot on about the hyped listings of 'top collectors', the difficulty interpreting auction results and the importance of assessing the quality of what happens to have come up for sale on that particular day. Clearly plenty of people are still buying old masters, some for very hefty prices. But I still think the truth lies somewhere in the middle; the market is not dead, but I don't think it's in particularly ruddy health either. There are £30m Turners and £20m Stubbs, but an awful lot of good pictures are selling poorly.

Even when growth is sluggish, economies reliably produce oodles of data. But the art market is still hard to see. Most transactions aren't just private, they're secret. The dealers open up for Old Master Week, but I was still rather unceremoniously turfed out of one gallery when they wanted to be alone with a client (thanks for the welcome, Ariadne Galleries ... and people wonder why new customers are put off old art ...). The one time when the market surfaces is the spectacular auctions when pictures dramatically sell for millions. They're the focus of art market comment, and unwarranted hasty conclusions are drawn from a tiny random sample of pictures offered in the big sales. A particularly weak sale at Christie's has caused a flurry of comment about the death of the old master market.

Some dealers continue to make a good living, but that is another piece of evidence that must be treated cautiously. The overall performance of an industry is weakly correlated with how much money people can make from it. There are probably blacksmiths still making a good living, whereas returns to manufacturers of computer hardware have been lackluster throughout the IT boom. We can't assess the health of the market on the basis of how much money some dealers are making. A more telling comparison is with the contemporary market, which I discuss in a separate post. 

But taking a step back from comparing different market segments or assessing performance over time, a simple measure of supply and demand is telling. Supply in the old master market is constrained; they're not making any more! Supply can increase as a result of new discoveries or museum deaccessions, and in the short term the amount coming up for sale can increase as a result of tax changes or as a result of increased demand pushing up prices and tempting people to sell. Supply can decrease as a result of museum acquisitions, damage and destruction, and re-attribution. None of these factors tell us a great deal about the health of the market, though. But another angle is to look at re-appraisals. In a booming market, more minor artists are rediscovered and re-evaluated. That's not happened much recently. Different schools wax and wane, but despite a long boom in Dutch art, Musscher and Sorgh remain under-appreciated. The best works rose sharply in price, pursued by a coterie of keen collectors, but bargains still abound in the lower end of the market. Unattributed works rarely make high prices, and unfashionable schools like the northern mannerists remain cheap. 

The demand side is even more stark. A long global economic boom has created an unprecedented number of millionaires and billionaires. The fruits of growth have disproportionately benefited the wealthy; even in the old world, the mass affluent are numerous and wealthy. The economy distributes rewards unequally, so even within professions like law and banking, those at the top have done disproportionately well. The results of these trends is evident everywhere except the old master market: the luxury goods industries have been growing strongly for decades, house prices in the world's most desirable enclaves have never been so high, and contemporary art is booming. For old masters merely to maintain their value in real terms in these circumstances is a sign of weakness; all things being equal, they too should be booming. 

It was not always so. In the 1970s and 1980s the impressionists were really taking off, but there were prominent public collectors vying for old masters: Getty, Thyssen, Norton Simon, Wrightsman. French eighteenth century art was eagerly pursued by the new rich. Rembrandt and Velazquez smashed records. Museums competed to buy great old masters. Earlier still, old masters were the epitome of fashionable taste. Not only were the very richest competing for fashionable Italian renaissance masterpieces, English portraits and the best Dutch masters, but there were layers of connoisseur-collectors focused on baroque art (Mahon, Seilern) or early Italian and early Netherlandish art (Lehman, Thyssen). Collectors wanted to show off their connoisseurship and discernment, seeking advice from scholars and experts. 

Today it seems that collectors seek to be curators rather than connoisseurs. They seek brands rather than beauty. Of course my examples are merely anecdotal, but I think the evidence of the market points to a real shift in elite taste. The old master market isn't dead, but its recent lethargy is more than a blip. 

Auction results: comparing old and new

The divergence between contemporary and old master pictures is often noted in abstract terms, and the highest priced contemporary works evince sneers from fuddy-duddys like me. But the contemporary market is broadly based, and it's interesting to compare across a range of prices. So rather than the usual post-mortem on the old master sales, I've made some direct comparisons. I've selected some old masters sold in the past couple of months from different price points and juxtaposed them with the closest comparison in price from the contemporary sales conducted by the same auction house in the same city. I think it gives some context to the debate about the state of the old master market. 

Francesco Solimena Noli me Tangere Christie's New York 3 June 2015 $353,000

This sublime Solimena sold fractionally above estimate recently, but it's a bargain for one of the most beautiful and perfect Italian baroque pictures at auction recently. The catalogue entry is excellent; I get the sense the writer liked it, too. It's a small and really attractive image of a quality that would hold up in any of the world's greatest museums. Yet it made just $350k. 

Two weeks earlier a minor and, to my eyes, artless sketch by Roy Lichtenstein sold for exactly the same price (above). Nearest prices in the same contemporary sale were for works by John Chamberlain and Lucas Samaras - not exactly household names. I've chosen the Solimena deliberately because I think it's a really great and undervalued picture, but it was well marketed and selected as the cover lot for the catalogue, so it's not exactly a sleeper. Yet it only made as much as some relatively quite minor and quite commonplace contemporary works. 

Richard Parkes Bonington A Coastal Landscape with Fisherfolk Christie's London £2,490,500

This wonderful languid landscape by the excessively rare Bonington sold for nearly £400k less than Martin Kippenberger's Untitled (below). I think the Bonington is the most beautiful English landscape picture sold in years, by a significant artist who died young and whose oil paintings are absent from many of the best public collections of British art. It's beautiful, easily appreciated, rare and art historically important. But cheaper than a Kippenberger that doesn't even have a title.

At the lower end of the market, a classic Dutch townscape by Berckheyde sold at Christie's for £48,750. It's not a picture that I love, and I think you could do better for the money. But I've chosen it because it's a good and decorative picture, easily recognised and appreciated. Yet it's slightly cheaper than a limited edition print of Marilyn Monroe by Vik Muniz, from 2004, which fetched £50k on 1 July. And Sotheby's got just £37,500 for this gorgeous (but deeply unfashionable) Bonito.

Jan de Bray A Violin Player accompanying two young singers Sotheby's 8 July £125,000 

I really thought this would soar, but it just beat the estimate modestly. It's an early work, and not his best, but still fabulous in my view. Six days earlier the same price was achieved for Ai Weiwei's Coloured Vases, neolithic vases vandalised in 2002 with industrial paint by a living artist who can churn out as many more of them as there are neolithic vases.  

Ferdinand Bol Portrait of a Boy Sotheby's 8 July £5,189,000

At the top end, Bol's Portrait of a Boy won many hearts and no one was surprised that it exceeded the estimate and smashed the record for Bol. But was £5m so much for such a fabulous picture? It's less than Yves Klein's Untitled Blue Monochrome, which is a blue monochrome painting without a title (sold on 1 July for £5,525,000). I reckon even I could knock you up a pretty good copy of the Klein, but who could replicate that Bol? I'd take just the still life over the Klein! In the same sale as the Klein, a Basquiat and a couple of Warhol dollar sign pictures sold in the same range, but works by Richter and Bacon sold for three times as much, and a Warhol dollar bill for four times as much. These are iconic pictures, but none is particularly uncommon and to my mind none comes close to the artistry of the Bol. 

We're used to seeing top contemporary pictures smash records, and truly outstanding old masters rarely come to market. But the depth of the contemporary market is striking. It's not just a handful of top names selling for vast fortunes. At every price point contemporary art is selling strongly. Contemporary art lacks rarity value, and has none of the history and romance that comes with a picture like the Bol, possibly a portrait of the artist's son, painted during one of the greatest flowerings of human civilization and then hung for centuries in one of England's grandest country houses. For a hundred times less money, the Berckheyde is another really fine picture with similar associations with the Dutch golden age, a timeless masterpiece within reach of thousands of the 'mass affluent'. Yet Warhol trumps Bol, a trivial sketch by Lichtenstein is valued on a par with a baroque masterpiece, and a pop art print outsells the Berckheyde. Reports of the demise of the old master market may be over-stated, but in relative terms the contemporary market is powering ahead.

All pictures sourced from auction houses. 

Old Master viewings

Picture: Sotheby's

This weekend was viewing for the winter old master sales at Sotheby's and Christie's in London. One of the great pleasures of auction viewing is seeing 'minor' pictures by unfamiliar artists. Willem van Herp I isn't a household name, but I was really struck by his splendid Tavern with merrymakers and cardplayers in the Sotheby's day sale, a large (32 by 40 inches) and well preserved painting on copper. Seen up close, the handling is broader and cruder than Jan Steen or David Teniers. But a good Steen or Teniers on this scale would be estimated a hundred times higher. I'm rather mystified by the decision to put this in the day sale (the pricier pictures are sold in the evening sales), hang it in a dingy corner of a downstairs gallery and estimate it at £60k to £80k, despite having sold for £165k in 1988. It's an especially lively and interesting tavern scene, with a great range of action and expression. It even includes a dog and a cat, so there really is something for everyone. There's another version available at Galleria Luigi Caretto in Turin.

Picture: Sotheby's

This good workshop version of Massys' The Misers (est. £60k - £80k) is in the same sale. It's just one of many versions of this famous composition, but nice quality and surely a bargain for a banker with a self-deprecating sense of humour (one lives in hope). I was also struck by a number of cheaply estimated and unattributed works that stand as summaries of their periods. This St John the Baptist is not particularly well painted, though it is well drawn (from a cartoon, perhaps?) and a fine example of mid sixteenth century Roman art with the foreshortened projecting leg and contrapposto stance, estimated at just £10k - £15k. Two good pictures by followers of Guido Reni's are impressive and cheaply estimated (lots 198 and 199). And a Daniele Crespi of The Head of St John the Baptist, vivid blood pooling on its platter, is not to everyone's taste, but that's why it's estimated at only £30k - £40k.

Picture: Sotheby's

This Deposition is catalogued as the workshop of Cornelis Engebrechtsz. (misspelled 'Engelbrechtsz.' in the title - a rare cataloguing slip!). It's an endearing image that shows some one trying but not quite succeeding. Almost every figure has the stock 'open mouth' trope of Renaissance art. The cumulative effect is a bit ridiculous, the individual figures showing a limited emotional range and not relating well. The estimate of £30k - £50k reflects its charm, and well painted details set against its failure as a coherent image. 

Picture: Sotheby's

Softer and prettier pictures from the eighteenth century are unfashionable. This portrait by Nattier, in the evening sale, is a steal at £150k - £250k. And pictures by less well known artists are cheaper still. There are three by Franz Christoph Janneck in the day sale, An agent collecting taxes from a hunter and a farmer's wife (above) is an endearing if unfashionable Austrian genre scene estimated at £8k - £12k, a tiny fraction of any equivalent seventeenth century Dutch work. It's a bit contrived, and less lovely than the best Dutch genre scenes, but still a rather good picture with a crazy low estimate.

Picture: Christie's

Sticking with the theme of day sale bargains, at Christie's there's a landscape by Cornelis Decker estimated at £50k - £70k that's superior to many damaged or minor works by more famous Dutch landscape artists. I suspect it will sell strongly because it's such an attractive picture. A very pretty Flinck portrait estimated at £40k - £60k, and another by Jacob Backer with the same estimate also appealed. There's a lovely still life by Maria van Oosterwyck (£100k - £150k), a female student of Heem's, a less well known still life artist, but awfully good. Among a group of pictures consigned from Petworth House is a beautifully painted, if unfashionable, Willem van Mieris finely framed and estimated at just £20k - £30k (above). It's a bit melodramatic and not the most compelling composition, but I find that estimate unbelievably low for such a finely painted picture. It wouldn't even pay the VAT on the premium of a trendy contemporary work! A Sano di Tito in a nice frame is another good picture that is also an expression of its age (£30k - £50k), as are two fine eighteenth century portraits, a Roslin at £20k - £30k and a Greuze (£40k - £60k).

Picture: Sotheby's

The evening sales have the big-ticket lots by famous artists, but again there were plenty of great things by less well known artists and from less fashionable schools of art. Bruyn's Coronation of the Virgin is one of my favourites from the Sotheby's evening sale. Big, rare and important, it's a kind of picture poorly represented in British museums, yet it's estimated at just £600k - £800k.

I find a lot of Dutch still life relatively rather pricey, but a fine small Huysum is good value at £150k - £250k. I guess people want their Huysums more flamboyant. There's a great pair of still lifes by Kessel, one of which is his signature made by insects (£500k - £800k). And a fine van der Heyden is cheaply estimated at £250k - £350k. Again it's not quite the Platonic ideal of a van der Heyden, but personally I'd rather have something more unusual, and this one is excellent.

As ever I thought the Brueghel peasant pictures and Venetian views rather dreary and overpriced. Objectively they're perfectly fine pictures, but I find myself rather repulsed by their relative over-valuation. It's interesting that they've included a pretty bad picture of The Temptation of St Anthony by a follower of Bosch into the evening sale, though both quality and estimate (£30k - £40k) make it more of a day sale picture. I guess it's designed to appeal to a certain aesthetic, in the hope that someone will overpay for its 'look' rather than its artistic quality. I wonder what strings the consignor had to pull in return - paying a sellers' premium, perhaps. The unknown factor is what impact sanctions on Russia will have on sales. An ormolu-mounted lapis lazuli tazza with Russian provenance seems particularly to appeal to Russian taste; I wonder if it will sell (£600k - £1m at Christie's).

Picture: Christie's

From the Christie's evening sale I was intrigued by the anonymous Antwerp School picture above, An Extensive Landscape with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, a large and tremendously impressive early landscape. It sold in 2006 at for £400k (against £350k - £450k estimate). It's much cheaper, much better and much more interesting than the Venetian views that sell so well. This is exactly the kind of picture that museums should be buying. It's high quality, visually stunning and rare. Few museums have good examples of this kind of art. Yet because it is unfashionable and unattributed, it is relatively cheap.

It surprises me that museums don't go after pictures like this. Often they follow market fashions, rather than lead them. The National Gallery waited until the market for American pictures was at its peak before buying its first major American painting, by an artist collected by billionaires. Museums seem bad at making judgments about relative value. British regional museums have limited budgets, but they keep buying more of what they already have, particularly British pictures. I do wish they'd make a few brave purchases, particularly of some of the unattributed and unfashionable pictures that are especially cheap.

Picture: Christie's

Other pictures that impressed me at Christie's evening sale were the Ostade (above, low estimate of £80k - £120k because pictures of apothecaries examining urine aren't what everyone wants in the drawing room), van der Helst (impressive large portrait, £250k - £350K) and Provoost (£250k - £350k, splendid but seems rather abraded). I also love the top lot, a superb Van Dyck (£2.5m - £3.5m).

Some pictures sell high (or at least have high estimates) because of the fame of their artists rather than their quality, such as this Saint Theresa of Avila at Sotheby's, a singularly uninspiring picture that is in the evening sale because it is by Ribera. Ribera is a fine artist, but I wouldn't want this one. Pompeo Batoni is another artist I like greatly, and think relatively undervalued, But I didn't like this one at Christie's. And I'm afraid I don't much care for Sotheby's' top lot either, a major Turner. Absolutely nothing wrong with the picture, which is outstanding of its type; it just doesn't speak to me. But the forty page catalogue entry is superb. The quality of cataloguing really is magnificent these days, with high quality reproductions and serious commentary, sometimes stretching to essay length. No wonder museums are hiring from auction houses

The market for mid-range old masters has been static for some time, with some schools falling sharply. Really good pictures can be had for prices that are low almost without precedent. A Teniers at Sotheby's is estimated at barely more than it realised in 1980 ($230k in 1980, estimate now £100k - £150k ≈ $161k-$241k). Estimates should be treated with some caution because they are not just objective attempts to predict prices. Sometimes they are high because the consignor insists on an unrealistic reserve. And weirdly low estimates are rarely because the auctioneers are simply wrong. Sometimes it's because good things aren't always fashionable. But it can also be a marketing gimmick to encourage bidding. I think that's the case with a few of the good Dutch pictures coming up, including works by van de Velde and van der Heyden that the auctioneers surely expect to exceed rather modest estimates.

Picture: Christie's

Let me finish with some seasonal cheer from Hendrick Bloemaert. His splendid Allegory of Winter will warm the hardest hearts. It's a really beautiful picture, estimated at £300k - £500k at Christie's. A perfect gift for a favoured blogger, perhaps?