Face-to-face bids back at Sotheby’s
● Works by Rembrandt, Miro and Picasso are being offered to entice life back to the auction world this week when Sotheby’s holds its first face-to-face sale in London since the coronavirus struck, with a line-up from the Renaissance to the European Avant Garde.
With art collectors locked down from Moscow to Manhattan and some fortunes in peril from the worst economic blow in centuries, the art auction world is trying to bring back some sparkle after the gloom of the pandemic.
Sotheby’s will hold the auction on Tuesday at its Bond Street salerooms, with 71 works spanning half a millennium of European art history, from Gerhard Richter to Rembrandt.
The Rembrandt is a self-portrait of the artist as a young man, one of only three left in private hands. The Dutch master looks out with the slightly affected confidence of youth.
Price tag: £12m-£16m (R256m-R341m). One of Miro’s dream paintings, Peinture (Femme au chapeau rouge), from 1927, shows a woman floating against a striking blue background, deliberately obscure like a wistful love poem.
It is on offer for £20m-£30m.
“It’s fantastic to be back in the galleries here in Bond Street,” said Helena Newman, chair of Sotheby’s Europe.
The Picasso is a seductive image of his lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Femme Endormie. In charcoal on primed canvas, her curved face, arms and lips are visible but her body is only hinted at.
Price: £6m-£9m.
“A statuesque and mysterious creature: a kind of goddess even, embodying youth and innocence and pure force of life,” art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon said of the portrait.
Fast forward 40 years to Richter’s Clouds (Window), which evokes the Romantic landscapes of Constable and the light effects of Turner. On sale for £9m-£20m.
Presale estimates for the auction range from £128.8m to £185.8m.
There will be limited attendance and bidders will be housed in a separate room to the auctioneer. Admittance is by ticket. Reuters