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A small painting by Sandro Botticelli sold for $ 92.2 million at auction at Sotheby’s on Thursday, in the first major art market test of the new year.
The result, an auction record for the Renaissance painter, was also the highest price paid for an early masterpiece since Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold for $ 450 million in 2017. It also represented a bonanza for the foundation of billionaire Sheldon Solow, who had bought it for about $ 1.3 million in 1982. The proceeds of the sale can be used to establish a private museum in Manhattan.
“It’s a wonderful painting,” said Marc Porter, president of Christie’s in the Americas this week. “It’s very attractive and alluring and undeniably rare. And the question for the market is whether this quest for extremely rare and attractive commercial works of art will continue to attract large numbers of bidders, even in the midst of the Covid-19 emergency. “
For now, at least, the answer is yes. The auction auction, broadcast live from New York City, lasted just 4.5 minutes and drew only two competitors. The winning bid was placed by Lilija Sitnika, a London-based employee who works with Russian clients. Sotheby’s declined to comment on the identity of the buyer. The work was estimated at more than $ 80 million. (The final price included hammer fees.)
Sotheby’s spent four months on its marketing campaign, showing the painting in Los Angeles, London and Dubai and publishing a catalog of almost 100 pages, with scholarly essays and technical analysis. International art buyers have taken note. Robert Simon, a former New York master dealer, said a wealthy Hong Kong collector contacted him shortly after the Botticelli sale was announced in September. “I’ve never heard of him,” Simon said. “He wanted to know what I thought of the painting.”
“There are people of immense wealth,” Simon added, “and they look at the paintings in terms of diversifying their wealth or just because they think it’s a good thing to own.
The Botticelli, “Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Cockade,” dates from around 1480. Although the identity of the subject is not known, he is believed to be a member of the powerful Medici family. Her long fingers grip a round, golden painting of a saint, attributed to the 14th-century Sienese painter Bartolomeo Bulgarini, which is inserted into Botticelli’s canvas, according to Sotheby’s.
The insert and youthfulness of the subject are unusual for Botticelli, said Keith Christiansen, chairman of the Department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the work had been on loan twice, most recently from 2013 to 2020.
“There is all kinds of speculation about his identity, but there is no way to establish who he is,” Christiansen said in an interview. “He is certainly part of a wealthy family, because they are the only people to have had their portraits painted.”
The painting has spent decades in museums. Before the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he was at the National Gallery of Art in Washington for 23 years, depending on provenance from Sotheby’s. Although it was sold anonymously, for much of that time it was also listed as an asset for the Solow Art and Architecture Foundation in tax documents.
But over the years, researchers have questioned the work’s attribution to Botticelli. It is still unclear when the saint’s tondo was inserted, and the question remains “perhaps the most debated question about painting,” according to the Sotheby’s catalog. Such doubts are common with paintings by old masters. What makes Botticelli more complicated is that the artist was completely forgotten for centuries after his death, said Mark Evans, senior curator of painting at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The artist was rediscovered in the 19th century by Pre-Raphaelite painters and has since become one of the most recognizable names in art history.
Only three “movable” Botticelli works – two paintings and a drawing – have documentation leading directly to the artist, said Evans, co-curator of an exhibition, “Botticelli Reimagined,” for the museum in 2016. “Nearly. of 90% of Botticelli’s works the work consists of attribution. What we know for sure about 15th century paintings is often very little. In Botticelli’s case, he was hardly remembered 200 years ago. ”
But the vagaries of the stock market often don’t stand in the way of astronomical prices, as was the case with the “Salvator Mundi,” which remains the most expensive work of art ever sold.
Botticelli’s “Young Man” may have an even broader appeal, said art consultant Beverly Schreiber Jacoby, president of BSJ Fine Art in New York.
“It’s not religious,” she said. “He’s a handsome youngster of high birth and good manners. You don’t have to be a collector of antique paintings to want to buy it. It is aimed at the widest possible audience. “
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