A small painting by Sandro Botticelli raised $ 92.2 million at auction at Sotheby’s on Thursday, in the first major test of the New Year’s art market.
The result, an auction record for the Renaissance painter, was also the highest price paid for an old masterpiece since Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold for $ 450 million in 2017. It also represented an unexpected profit to the founding of billionaire Sheldon Solow, who bought it for about $ 1.3 million in 1982. The proceeds from the sale can be used to establish a private museum in Manhattan.
“It’s a wonderful painting,” said Marc Porter, Christie’s president in the Americas, this week. “It is very attractive and seductive and undeniably rare. And the question for the market is whether this search for extremely rare and attractive commercial works of art will continue to attract a large number of bidders, even in the depth of the Covid-19 emergency. “
For now, at least, the answer is yes. The auction, which was broadcast live from New York, lasted only 4.5 minutes and attracted only two bidders. The winning offer was made by Lilija Sitnika, a London-based employee who works with Russian customers. Sotheby’s declined to comment on the buyer’s identity. The work was estimated at more than $ 80 million. (The final price includes hammer fees.)
Sotheby’s spent four months in its marketing campaign, exhibiting the painting in Los Angeles, London and Dubai and publishing a catalog of almost 100 pages, with academic essays and technical analysis. International art buyers noticed. Robert Simon, a former New York dealer, said a wealthy Hong Kong collector contacted him shortly after the announcement of the sale of Botticelli in September. “I never heard of him,” said Simon. “He wanted to know what I thought about the painting.”
“There are some people of tremendous wealth,” Simon added, “and they are looking at the paintings in terms of diversifying their wealth or just because they think it is a great thing to own.”
Botticelli, “Portrait of a young man holding a roundel”, dates from around 1480. Although the subject’s identity is not known, he is believed to be a member of the powerful Medici family. His long fingers hold a round, golden painting of a saint, attributed to the 14th century Siena painter, Bartolomeo Bulgarini, which is inserted in Botticelli’s canvas, according to Sotheby’s.
The insertion and youth of the theme are unusual for Botticelli, said Keith Christiansen, head of the European painting department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the work was borrowed twice, the last 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 a member of a wealthy family because these were the only people who had their portraits painted.”
Painting spent decades in museums. Before the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he spent 23 years at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, according to Sotheby’s origins. Although it was sold anonymously, for much of that time, it was also listed among the assets of the Solow Art and Architecture Foundation in tax documents.
But over the years, scholars have questioned the attribution of the work to Botticelli. It is still unclear when the saint’s tondo was inserted, and the question remains “perhaps the most debated issue about painting,” according to the Sotheby catalog. These doubts are common in the paintings of ancient 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 well-known names in art history.
Only three “mobile” works by Botticelli – two paintings and a drawing – have documentation that leads directly to the artist, said Evans, co-curator of an exhibition, “Botticelli Reimagined,” for the museum in 2016. “Nearly 90 percent Botticelli’s work consists of attribution. What we know for sure about 15th century paintings is often very little. In the case of Botticelli, almost nothing remembered him 200 years ago. ”
But the vagaries of the scholarship often do not hinder astronomical prices, as was the case with the “Salvator Mundi”, which remains the most expensive work of art ever sold.
Botticelli’s “youngster” may have an even broader appeal, said art consultant Beverly Schreiber Jacoby, president of BSJ Fine Art in New York.
“It is not religious,” she said. “He is a handsome young man by birth and manners. You don’t have to be a collector of paintings by old masters to want to buy them. It attracts the largest possible audience. “