The two-day outing of 361 Victorian paintings and sculpture tested a market that had been undermined by a poor round of November sales, and while Christie’s total of £16.9m was only reached by offloading many lots below estimate, the auctioneers claimed no fewer than 64 auction records for artists, including John Martin for the best-selling Pandemonium. Measuring 4ft 1/2in by 6ft 5/8in (1.23 x 1.84m) in the original gilt frame of demonic artifice, detail below right, the painting sold to a New York dealer, reported elsewhere as French and Co., for a hammer price of £1.5m (plus 19.5/12 per cent buyer’s premium).
Pandemonium sells for hammer price of £1.5 million
Inspired by the catacombs of Somerset House, the street lighting of Pall Mall and, above all, the Babylonian splendour of the new Houses of Parliament, artist John Martin’s 1841 oil on canvas Pandemonium was an apocalyptic vision of Victorian London that played well to the post-September 11 sensibilities of the US picture trade at Christie’s King Street sale of the Forbes collection on February 19-20.
