The $92 Million Renaissance Man
Sotheby’s made history on 28 January with a $114.5 million total Masters auction, led by the sale of Sandro Botticelli’s Portrait of a young man holding a roundel.
Thursday morning’s marquee Master Paintings & Sculpture Part I auction in New York saw a historic sale for a work by the preeminent Florentine master Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Sandro Botticelli. The painting, a defining work of the Italian Renaissance, led Sotheby’s Masters Week 2021, a series of seven auctions encompassing Old Master paintings, drawings and sculpture spanning more than half a millennium – many of which have not been seen in centuries.
Botticelli’s magnificent Portrait of a young man holding a roundel, one of the very finest portraits from the Florentine Master, soared to $92,184,000 total. The price achieved today makes it not only one of the most valuable portraits of any era ever sold, but also one of the most valuable Master paintings ever sold at auction. It was last purchased at auction in 1982 for $1.3 million. “This is a painting that transcends the normal boundaries of the Old Master genre,” said George Wachter, Sotheby's Co-Chairman of Old Master Paintings, Worldwide, “one of the best-preserved, most exquisite, classical Renaissance portraits that anyone could ever wish to own.”
Since Sotheby’s launch of the innovative, distanced livestream sale format last June, this is the second artwork to realize over $80 million at auction (this record was first set by the sale of Francis Bacon’s Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, which sold for $84.6 million in June 2020).
Sotheby’s presents Masters Week 2021 in partnership with Bulgari. Master department specialists and Sotheby’s auctioneer Oliver Barker donned fine jewels and watches by Bulgari for the Thursday morning livestream auction. Included were the Platinum, Ruby and Diamond ‘Rosso Caravaggio’ Necklace (worn by Senior Vice President Margaret H Schwartz) the Octo Finissimo Automatic watch (worn by auctioneer Oliver Barker), the B.zero1 bracelet (worn by specialist Calvine Harvey) and a matching set of B.zero1 earrings and ring (worn by specialist Elisabeth Lobkowicz).
The second highest-selling artwork was The descent from the cross, a powerful and intensely moving painting created around 1480 by Hugo Van der Goes. Rediscovered in 1950, the work is an emblem of devotional piety and ranks among the most important examples of Early Netherlandish art to appear at auction in the modern era.
Further highlights from the marquee morning sale included new auction records for a number of preeminent masters. Florentine artist Lucca della Robbia’s Relief of the Madonna and child, circa 1450 sold for $2,016,500, surpassing the pre-sale high estimate of $1 million. Two Dutch Golden Age artists, Willem van Aelst and Gerard Sehgers, both achieved new records: Aelst’s Still life with grapes in a basket, peaches on a silver dish, medlars, two butterflies, a fly and a snail, all on a red velvet cloth over a partially draped ledge achieved $1,230,000 and Sehgers’s respledent Repentant Mary Magdalene, last sold at auction in 1817, brought $746,000. Additional records were realized for the Master of Marradi ($1,024,300) and Frans Pourbus the Elder ($478,800).
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