Art market
A lost work by Cimabue tops the market in France, as a Suffolk artistic home receives a boost
ALTHOUGH only 10 works are firmly attributed to him, Cenni di Pepo, or Cimabue, is regarded as the seminal artist of Western European painting. This is because he was among the first to move beyond the statuesque traditions of Byzantine icon painting, giving life and movement to his figures and even a modicum of true perspective to architectural elements. He was born in Florence between 1240 and 1250, and died in Pisa in 1302; traditionally, he was said to have discovered and trained Giotto and to have influenced Duccio. Probably his best-known work is the painted Crucifixion in S Croce, Florence.
Both the names by which he is known are, in fact, nicknames, as Cenni di Pepo is a shortening of Bencivieni (Benvenuto in modern Italian) di Giuseppe, and Cimabue means ‘bull-headed’, for his pride and bluntness. He was highly revered by contemporaries until fashion left him behind. As Dante put it: ‘In painting Cimabue thought he held the field, But now it’s Giotto has the cry, so that the other’s fame is dimmed.’
The latest Old Master discovery in France has added another panel to Cimabue’s oeuvre and made it the eighth most expensive Old Master sold at auction
—although some might rather describe the number one on that list, the controversial Salvator Mundi, as ‘Old Masterish’.
The 9½in by 7¾in panel, The Mocking of Christ (Fig 1), was found during a valuation in a house near Compiègne by staff from the auction consortium Actéon, headed by Dominique Le Coënt. The owners thought that it was a comparatively inconsequential gold-ground icon, but, once the Old Master expert Eric Turquin had been brought in, it was established beyond doubt that it was one of eight scenes that had been painted on two panels as a diptych by Cimabue in about 1280.
At some point in the 19th century, the scenes were sawn apart, presumably by a dealer who could sell eight more profitably than one. Certainty is possible because two others survive— an enthroned Madonna and Child in the National Gallery and a Flagellation in the Frick Collection. The Madonna must have been above The Mocking, as a woodworm trail runs down from the back of one to the other (Fig 2).
Interestingly, the Frick acquired its scene only in 1950 and the
National Gallery received the
Madonna in 2000, in lieu of death duties, so it is quite possible that some or all of the remaining five may yet turn up. Monsieur Turquin will certainly be on the look-out. It was he who was responsible for the sale of the similarly discovered Caravaggio
Judith Beheading Holofernes
earlier this year. It is well worth keeping an eye out, as, last month, Actéon sold The Mocking of Christ for €24,180,000 (£20,837,115).
I had hoped to hear more of another discovery sold in August by Burstow & Hewett of Battle, but nothing has reached me and, as I can’t quite make up my mind, I offer it for others to look at. The 10in by 14in monochrome wash study of a woman breastfeeding by a path (Fig 3) was from a consignment of drawings and watercolours that the auctioneer felt might be worth £50 to £100 each. However, it was keenly bid to £5,888, going to a collector from the North of England. Despite weaknesses, such as the dog, one rather large name niggles at me. I wonder what readers, or indeed the collector, might think.
On October 9 in COUNTRY LIFE, our Town & Country column illustrated Foxgloves by the artist-plantsman Sir Cedric Morris, then about to go to auction estimated to £50,000, at Sworders of Stansted Mountfitchet. On October 22, it sold for £204,160, which represents not only a large bonus for the vendor, but also to the funds of the Benton End House and Garden Trust, to which a portion was donated.
This was not only the home and studio of Morris and his lifelong partner Arthur LettHaines, but also, from 1937, their influential East Anglian school of painting and drawing.
The same sale saw the dispersal of the contents of Hill House, Sudbury, home of Tony Venison, for many years COUNTRY LIFE’S highly regarded Gardens Editor.
The London dealer who paid the record price for Foxgloves also bought two Morris paintings from Venison’s collection, the 24in by 36in View of a Turkish village near Izmir (Fig 5) at £12,760 and the 30in by 24in Still Life with Vases, Flowers and a Dish
of Painted Eggs (Fig 6), for which he paid £500 in 1970. The latter now sold for £22,968. From another source came a fourth Morris painting, Drought in Oxfordshire, 1933, which went to a second London dealer at £63,800.
One of the many distinguished artists who studied at Benton End was Maggi Hambling. She was born in Sudbury and has always been faithful to Suffolk, if nowadays rather more to its coast. Here, one of her oil studies, the 2in by 8½in
Portrait of the Sea (Fig 4), painted in 2006, reached £6,890. Next week When beer was tax free