Prized Sculpture Found in Garden

A 17th-century bronze found in a garden may fetch as much as $32 million at auction after being identified as a masterpiece by Dutch sculptor Adriaen de Vries. ARTKABINETT collector members should now scour their gardens and patios for such fabulous art finds as this. The mythological figure supporting a globe (shown here) has been hailed by dealers as a major discovery that is likely to fetch a record price for a pre-20th-century European sculpture at Christieís International in London on July 7.

"It is a magnificent work by one of the greatest sculptors of the period," Stuart Lochhead, director of the London-based dealers Daniel Katz Ltd., said in an interview. "It could easily go for 15 or 20 million pounds to Qatar or Abu Dhabi."

The bronze, found during a routine valuation at an unidentified castle in Northern Europe, has a formal estimate of 5 million pounds to 8 million pounds, Christie's said.

"Our valuer was told not to forget the things in the garden," Donald Johnston, Christie's international head of sculpture, said in an interview. "I will get to the de Vries later," he joked. When he climbed a ladder and looked at the bronze, that was exactly the signature he found."

The 3-foot, 7-inch (1.1 meter) statue has been cleaned of green oxidation caused by centuries of rain and is now waxed.

The globe held by the garlanded figure is thought to have been a later 17th-century addition.

De Vries (portrait right) was a late-renaissance sculptor who worked in Prague for the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and his military commander Albrecht von Wallenstein. The latter commissioned a number of garden statues from the artist, of which this latest discovery, dated 1626, may have been one, Christieís said.  His famous bronze sculpture of Lazarus is shown here.

Venus, Cupid
The record for an early European sculpture is the 6.9 million pounds paid for a late-15th-century Italian gilded bronze roundel of Mars, Venus, Cupid and Vulcan at Christie's in December 2003.

The buyer was Sheikh Saud al Thani, cousin of the Emir of Qatar, dealers said.

Of later works, a limestone head by the 20th-century sculptor Amedeo Modigliani sold in Paris for 43.2 million euros ($53 million) in June last year.