The family of the late Princess Diana sold two paintings in London on Tuesday for £14.2 million ($21.5 million) at Christie’s Old Masters & 19th Century Art Evening Sale. Peter Paul Rubens’s Portrait of a Commander Being Armed for Battle fetched £9 million ($13.6 million) with fees, while Guercino’s King David was acquired for £5.2 million ($7.9 million).
Both works from the Princess of Wales’s family, which sold near their lower estimates, are part of a collection of treasures to be auctioned off by the family in three separate Christie’s sales. This three-day effort is an attempt to raise £20 million to help with restoration work at Althorp, the 14,000-acre childhood estate of Princess Diana, where the Rubens piece hung for over 200 years.
Philip Hoffman, chief executive of the London-based Fine Art Fund, told MutualArt.com, “The fact that these artworks were sold by the Spencer family [Earl Charles Spencer is Princess Diana’s brother] was huge,” adding, “People want to own works from great collections, it adds enormously to the salability of a work of art. In the contemporary world it’s relatively irrelevant unless, for example, Charles Saatchi owned a painting, whereas in Old Masters if it comes from a major family house it probably adds at least 50-100% to the price.”
The 67-lot sale produced a solid performance, totaling £42.3 million ($64.2 million) against a £36.9–55.3 million estimate, with 12 lots surpassing the million-dollar mark. However, 20 lots went unsold including, one of Michele Marieschi’s Venice paintings predicted to achieve up to £1.2 million. The other Venice landscape artwork by the artist at the auction sold for £1.6 million within estimate. The buyers were 28% UK, 53% rest of Europe, and 19% Americas.
The sale kicked off a week of Old Masters sales in London, following mixed results at auctions of impressionist & modern art and contemporary & post-war art in the UK capital in the past two weeks.
According to Hoffman, “I believe [Tuesday’s] sale was quite impressive. Quality Old Masters are going to increasingly fetch world record prices while the remaining lower value pieces are going to have trouble selling. The top-end of the market is seeing huge prices, we’ve seen this in contemporary art last week when Chris Ofili and Glenn Brown achieved new world record prices, we’ve seen it on the impressionist side in New York and to some extent in London and the Old Masters is following suit.”
Hoffman added, "I think what we’re seeing is that things fresh to the market are achieving very strong results. Many of the Old Masters have been repainted in the last 50 years and they are not in perfect condition so what you see is not always what you get. And therefore most of the major collectors do not want them, nor do the museums. So if the works are in great condition and are fresh on the market, you’re going to see world record prices this year and next year. Unlike contemporary art, where you can offer a picture privately and then put it up for auction a year later and it won’t make much of a difference, In the Old Masters world you have to keep an Old Master off the market for 3-5 minimum, and possibly 7-10 years."
Ruben's 400-year-old Portrait of a Commander achieved the second-best result by the Flemish artist, whose The Massacre of the Innocents sold for a stellar £50 million at a 2002 Sotheby’s London auction. Although originally described as the ‘School of Rubens’ in the 1802 inventory of the Althorp collection, this superbly preserved 1612-1614 panel painting is now justly recognized as the prime version of this composition by leading Rubens scholars, including by those connected to the Corpus Rubenianum in Antwerp, Christie’s said.
According to Richard Knight, International co-Head, and Paul Raison, Head of Old Masters and 19th Century Art at Christie’s London, “The market for classical European art continues to produce solid results. This evening's sale took place in a packed saleroom and saw balanced, steady bidding, realizing the 3rd highest ever total for the category at Christie's in London. Our decision to offer Old Masters alongside 19th Century Art and Works on Paper continues to reap benefits, as we see ever-increasing levels of cross-over buying between established collectors of these traditional categories.”
Both works from the Princess of Wales’s family, which sold near their lower estimates, are part of a collection of treasures to be auctioned off by the family in three separate Christie’s sales. This three-day effort is an attempt to raise £20 million to help with restoration work at Althorp, the 14,000-acre childhood estate of Princess Diana, where the Rubens piece hung for over 200 years.
Philip Hoffman, chief executive of the London-based Fine Art Fund, told MutualArt.com, “The fact that these artworks were sold by the Spencer family [Earl Charles Spencer is Princess Diana’s brother] was huge,” adding, “People want to own works from great collections, it adds enormously to the salability of a work of art. In the contemporary world it’s relatively irrelevant unless, for example, Charles Saatchi owned a painting, whereas in Old Masters if it comes from a major family house it probably adds at least 50-100% to the price.”
The 67-lot sale produced a solid performance, totaling £42.3 million ($64.2 million) against a £36.9–55.3 million estimate, with 12 lots surpassing the million-dollar mark. However, 20 lots went unsold including, one of Michele Marieschi’s Venice paintings predicted to achieve up to £1.2 million. The other Venice landscape artwork by the artist at the auction sold for £1.6 million within estimate. The buyers were 28% UK, 53% rest of Europe, and 19% Americas.
The sale kicked off a week of Old Masters sales in London, following mixed results at auctions of impressionist & modern art and contemporary & post-war art in the UK capital in the past two weeks.
According to Hoffman, “I believe [Tuesday’s] sale was quite impressive. Quality Old Masters are going to increasingly fetch world record prices while the remaining lower value pieces are going to have trouble selling. The top-end of the market is seeing huge prices, we’ve seen this in contemporary art last week when Chris Ofili and Glenn Brown achieved new world record prices, we’ve seen it on the impressionist side in New York and to some extent in London and the Old Masters is following suit.”
Hoffman added, "I think what we’re seeing is that things fresh to the market are achieving very strong results. Many of the Old Masters have been repainted in the last 50 years and they are not in perfect condition so what you see is not always what you get. And therefore most of the major collectors do not want them, nor do the museums. So if the works are in great condition and are fresh on the market, you’re going to see world record prices this year and next year. Unlike contemporary art, where you can offer a picture privately and then put it up for auction a year later and it won’t make much of a difference, In the Old Masters world you have to keep an Old Master off the market for 3-5 minimum, and possibly 7-10 years."
Ruben's 400-year-old Portrait of a Commander achieved the second-best result by the Flemish artist, whose The Massacre of the Innocents sold for a stellar £50 million at a 2002 Sotheby’s London auction. Although originally described as the ‘School of Rubens’ in the 1802 inventory of the Althorp collection, this superbly preserved 1612-1614 panel painting is now justly recognized as the prime version of this composition by leading Rubens scholars, including by those connected to the Corpus Rubenianum in Antwerp, Christie’s said.
According to Richard Knight, International co-Head, and Paul Raison, Head of Old Masters and 19th Century Art at Christie’s London, “The market for classical European art continues to produce solid results. This evening's sale took place in a packed saleroom and saw balanced, steady bidding, realizing the 3rd highest ever total for the category at Christie's in London. Our decision to offer Old Masters alongside 19th Century Art and Works on Paper continues to reap benefits, as we see ever-increasing levels of cross-over buying between established collectors of these traditional categories.”
