Old Masters

IT was not just Sotheby’s and Christie’s who were generating some exceptional prices for Old Masters in New York in the third week of January. The East 87th Street auctioneers Doyle’s (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) generated keen interest from TEFAF Maastricht exhibitors in the room when they included a moody Gottfried Schalken (1643-1706) canvas in their January 21 sale.

PARIS: A PLETHORA of picture sales in Paris in December yielded some unexpectedly high prices but an erratic overall response, with an average take-up (by lot) of around 60 per cent. Results were stronger for Old Masters than for Modern Art, while the presence of buyers from across Europe helped offset the absence of Americans, deterred by the weak dollar.

THE secret of great art is supposed to be not what’s put in, but what’s left out, but unfortunately the same doesn’t apply to art sales. The star lot of Christie’s (19.5/12% buyer’s premium) November 26 auction of Important British & Irish Art was meant to be this impressively decorative Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) portrait, right, of the celebrated exotic Georgian beauty, Mrs Baldwin.

The artist might have been unknown, the subject unconfirmed, but this unsigned 133/4 x 173/4in (35 x 45cm) Victorian oil, right, of figures on the deck of a yacht was nonetheless the most hotly contested lot at Stride & Son’s (15% buyer’s premium) August 29 sale in Chichester.

In terms of ‘Old Masters’ in their strictest sense, the July 9 sale sale at Bonhams (19.5/10% buyer’s premium) Knightsbridge might have been conspicuously short of quality, but the presence of this fine George Stubbs (1724-1806) canvas of a dark bay in a landscape. right, gave proceedings a lift when it sold at £1.75m to an American collector represented by London dealer Ray Waterhouse in the room.

ON June 17, Finarte-Semenzato held a further sale of furniture and Old Master paintings in Milan, offering almost 540 lots of which less than half sold.

TUCKED away through an archway next to wine merchants Berry Bros & Rudd in St James’s Street is Pickering Place, home of Nevil Keating Tollemache – formerly Nevill Keating. Pictures until director Angela Nevill formed a new company with Michael Tollemache, a past chairman of the Society of London Art Dealers and a specialist in Old Master and 19th century paintings.

Coming up in London: Hidden for over 300 years behind the work of a pupil, this image of one of the world’s most celebrated painters at the age of 28 has only recently emerged from beneath layers of overpaint. This newly discovered Rembrandt self-portrait promises to be the highlight of this summer’s auction season in London and will be offered for sale at Sotheby’s on July 10.

A man who had a 17th century Dutch panel painting stolen from his home more than 20 years ago has failed in an Appeal Court to win compensation from Christie’s, who offered the picture for sale in 1997. Key to the test case was Christie’s ability to show they had acted in good faith, adding further legal weight to the importance of due diligence.

ON the same day as Whyte’s Dublin sale, the Irish theme continued this side of the water at Essex when Sworders (15 per cent buyer’s premium) offered a drawing by Sir William Orpen (1878-1931) at their Stansted Mountfichet rooms on April 29 – a 16 by 14in (40 x 35cm) signed pencil and coloured washes piece entitled The Furniture Painter.

THERE were suppressed cries of irritation from the public at the May 8 sale held in Madrid by Alcalá Subastas as the Spanish State pre-empted all the important lots of the evening, including two newly-discovered paintings by Goya.

A rare discovery of two completely unknown paintings by Goya has aroused considerable interest in Madrid. Discovered during a visit to a family in Madrid, the two paintings of Tobias and the Angel and The Holy Family were identified by the picture expert of Alcalá Subastas, Richard de Willermin.

In an Old Master week when major-name masterworks were in short supply, the appearance of two of only four known drawings by El Greco (1541-1614) at Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) December 9 Old Master Drawings sale understandably attracted plenty of attention.

A combination of vendors reluctant to consign the best quality goods and cautious bidding from the trade created a fairly low-key atmosphere at London’s traditional pre-Christmas round of Old Master picture sales.

It must be the dream insurance policy: compensation for loss and the return of the goods stolen. But for security giant Chubb, it was a claim too far when wealthy art lover Michael Clarke-Jervoise demanded he be handed back a 17th century Dutch masterpiece for which they had earlier paid him £125,000 in compensation.

Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life, by Hugh Belsey, published by Prestel. ISBN 379132784 £14.95hb

Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents is to go on public display at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Lord Thomson of Fleet, who set a record for an Old Master painting at auction when he paid £45m for the work at Sotheby’s in London in July, announced that the painting would join nearly 2000 other works in his collection at the gallery after it completes a $315m renovation and expansion.

The claim against London art dealers Agnews over a painting formerly attributed to Constable has been settled out of court. Sir Simon Day launched the claim over a series of free valuations carried out on the painting – Hampstead Heath: Branch Hill Pond – from 1975 until the late 1990s.

A set of paintings, including two by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, have been stolen from a country house in Ireland that has now been targeted four times by thieves, police said.

History was made at Sotheby’s July 10 Old Master Paintings sale when Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ long-lost masterpiece, The Massacre of the Innocents, sold in the room to the Mayfair-based book dealer Sam Fogg for £45m, the highest auction price ever achieved for a work of art in the UK.