A large-scale painting by Titian, starring a plump baby Jesus, Madonna and two saints could fetch as much as $20 million at Sotheby’s this week. ARTKABINETT social network for fine art collectors loves to view fabulous old masters.
The earth-toned canvas with striking pink clouds is the priciest lot during the week of Old Master auctions in New York.
Sotheby’s and Christie’s International are expecting to sell as much as $187 million of paintings, drawings and sculpture by famous names such as Brueghel, Cranach, Fragonard and Rubens.
Starting today, Sotheby’s will host five auctions, including a 280-lot sale from the estate of Charles Ryskamp, former director of the Morgan Library and the Frick Collection, and a 59-lot sale from the collection of Jacob Elie Safra, a member of the Safra banking family.
Titian (self portrait below), who died in 1576, is thought to have finished “A Sacra Conversazione: The Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of Alexandria” around 1560, according to Sotheby’s catalogue.
From the 1550s onward, the majority of Titian’s canvases were done with the help of studio assistants, and “A Conversazione” is no exception, the auction house said. Perhaps that could explain St. Luke’s weirdly short right arm.
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The painting will be offered on Jan. 27. Its estimated range of $15 million to $20 million exceeds the Venetian painter’s $13.6 million auction record, which was achieved 20 years ago at Christie’s in London.
More recently, London’s National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland had to raise 50 million pounds ($80 million) to purchase Titian’s “Diana and Actaeon” from the Duke of Sutherland.
Courtesy: Katya Kazakina/Bloomberg News.
