Helen Cook
New York, Jan 28 (EFE) .- A portrait painted by Botticelli about 540 years ago was sold on Thursday for 76 million euros (92.1 million dollars) at an auction at the New York headquarters of Sotheby’s, which marked a new record price for a work by the Renaissance artist and easily surpassed the 66 million euros ($ 80 million) predicted by experts.
It was the first time the painting, “Young Man Holding a Medallion,” had been up for auction since 1982, and only the fourth time it had been sold in the past 200 years, Sotheby’s noted.
“The last time it was released on the market was in 1982. Before that it was in a private collection from the beginning of the 20th century, and before that in another from the late 18th century, we think. So you don’t see very often.” Christopher Apostle, the New York director of Sotheby’s Grand Masters department, told Efe.
The auction house described the work as “one of the best Renaissance pieces to ever reach auction” for several factors, including its exceptional condition, despite its more than five centuries old, and the fact that it is one of only three portraits of Botticelli that remain in private hands.
“In my 30-year professional career, I have never had a Botticelli that comes close to the quality, the condition, the beauty and the importance of it,” Apostle said.
The piece, sold in a week of auctions that Sotheby’s dedicates to the great masters of art history, reached the exorbitant figure after just over 4 minutes of battle between several buyers who bid by phone through representatives of the company present at the New York and London offices.
From the starting price of 57.6 million euros ($ 70 million), it took less than 60 seconds to reach the 66 million euros of hammer price, which was offered by a telephone buyer from the London headquarters, a figure that It reached 76 million euros ($ 92,184,000) after adding fees and taxes.
Thus, “Young man holding a medallion” pulverizes the previous maximum price of a Botticelli work, being nine times higher than the 10.5 million that were paid in 2018 for “Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist.”
In addition, it ranks as the second most expensive portrait painted by one of the great masters (painters of Europe before 1800) in history, only behind Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi”, sold for 450.3 million dollars (more than 371 million euros) in 2017.
Before being sold, the work traveled to several cities around the world, including London, Dubai and Los Angeles before arriving in New York, a tour in which it aroused enormous expectations, especially in the British capital and in the metropolis of the United Arab Emirates. , where in a single day some 300 people went to the galleries of the auction house to admire it.
Although Botticelli was a very famous artist who painted various members of the Medici family, the great patrons of Florence’s Renaissance, very few of his portraits survived the passage of time, and most of them are on display in museums.
In 1982, the piece sold for about 810,000 pounds sterling (about 917,000 euros at current exchange rates), but this time experts valued it before the auction at 80 million dollars when compared to other masterpieces that have hit the market, such as those of Francis Bacon or Picasso.
Sotheby’s also highlighted the relevance of Botticelli in the history of art, and recalled that he is responsible for some of the most iconic pieces, such as “Spring” or “The Birth of Venus”.
“Sandro Botticelli is really the quintessential artist of the Florentine Renaissance. Before Michelangelo and before Leonardo da Vinci there was Botticelli,” Apostle stressed.
It is also the second painting to exceed 80 million dollars (66 million euros) at a Sotheby’s auction since the house was forced to start selling to the highest bidder digitally due to the pandemic in the past. June, when 84 million dollars were paid for “Triptych inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus”, by Francis Bacon.
At the auction on Thursday, collectors were also waiting impatiently for the sale of the small but masterful painting “Abraham and the Angels”, a work by Rembrandt valued between 16 and 25 million euros and which is one of the only five biblical paintings by the Dutchman in private hands.
However, the piece was withdrawn from auction shortly before the sale. EFE
hc/jfu/cgm
–
