The Citizen (Gauteng)

Botticelli sells for R1.4 billion

- Peter Hutchison

A portrait by Italian Renaissanc­e painter Sandro Botticelli sold for $92 million (about R1.4 billion) at an online Sotheby’s auction, smashing the record price for the artist.

Young Man Holding a Roundel, believed to have been painted in the 1470s or 1480s, is considered one of Botticelli’s finest portraits and is the highlight of Sotheby’s Masters Week sale in New York.

“This is a work that transcends time and categories. Now we really do know the price of beauty,” said George Wachter, co-chair of old master paintings at Sotheby’s.

The 58 by 39 centimetre painting shows a man in his late teenage years with long golden hair sitting holding a disc featuring a bearded saint.

The roundel, which depicts the saint with his right hand raised, is an original 14th-century artwork attributed to Sienese painter Bartolomme­o Bulgarini. Art historians suspect the Botticelli depicts a nobleman proudly showing off the earlier artwork.

“This image symbolises and exemplifie­s the Renaissanc­e in Florence,” said Sotheby’s senior vice-president Christophe­r Apostle before the auction. “We haven’t seen anything like it in my lifetime.”

The auction, which took place virtually and was streamed live online, saw fierce bidding between Sotheby’s representa­tives in New York and London, with a buyer directing orders through London winning out.

Sotheby’s said the final price, including fees and commission­s, was $92.2 million after it sold under the hammer for $80 million. The price establishe­s it as one of the most significan­t portraits to have sold at auction.

It becomes the second-most valuable Old Master painting auctioned after Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi went for $450.3 million at a Christie’s sale in 2017.

The price ranks alongside Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which sold for $87.9 million in 2006, and Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr Gachet, which fetched $82.5 million in 1990.

The previous record for a Botticelli was set in 2013 when Madonna and Child with Young Saint John the Baptist sold for $10.4 million. – AFP

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