An unusual painting by Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli was sold to an Asian collector for $ 92.2 million this Thursday at Sotheby’s in New York, a record auction for the artist.
The canvas, entitled “Young Man Holding a Medallion,” is considered one of Botticelli’s finest portraits and was the jewel of the Grand Masters auction.
Experts believe the painting dates back to Botticelli’s most prolific years (1445-1510), in the late 15th century, when Pope Sixtus IV invited him to help decorate the Sistine Chapel in Rome. During this period he produced some of his most famous works, including “The Birth of Venus” and “The Spring.”
– “The price of beauty” –
“As fresh today as when it was painted 550 years ago, the young Botticelli has cast his spell on all who have seen him,” said George Wachter, co-director of Old Master Paintings at Sotheby’s.
Its asking price is the second-highest ever for an Old Master painting, and the highest at Sotheby’s in New York since Claude Monet’s “Meules” auction in May 2019, for $ 110 million.
“This is a work that transcends time and categories. Now we really know the price of beauty,” Wachter said.
The previous auction record for the Florentine master whose birth name was Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi was just $ 10.4 million for “Madonna and Child with Saint John the Baptist,” sold in 2013.
The 58 by 39 cm painting shows a young man with long hair holding a circular medallion with a religious portrait. His identity is unknown, but specialists believe that he could be a close friend of the powerful Florentine Medici family.
The medallion, showing a saint with his right hand raised, is an original 14th-century work of art attributed to the Sienese painter Bartolommeo Bulgarini.
– Symbol of the Renaissance –
“This image symbolizes the Renaissance in Florence, when everything fundamentally changes in the thought, art and literature of the West,” explained Christopher Apostle, head of Sotheby’s antique masterpieces department in New York.
The portrait had been in the hands of several generations of an aristocratic family in Wales for about 200 years until 1982, when real estate mogul Sheldon Solow bought it for $ 1.3 million.
“This Botticelli is more spectacular, in every way, than anything we’ve seen hit the market,” Apostle said.
“When you look at a canvas like this, which is so exceptional, you have to compare it with other masterpieces, paintings by Picasso, Bacon or Basquiat,” he added.
Despite being over 500 years old, the painting has been immaculately preserved and has been exhibited in various museums such as the National Gallery in London and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Only a dozen of Botticelli’s paintings survive, and experts estimate that “Young Man Holding a Medallion” is as significant as two other works by the artist, “Portrait of Man with the Medal of Cosimo the Elder” and “Portrait of Giuliano de Medici “.
Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” masterpiece, sold for $ 450 million by Christie’s in 2017, is the only one of the old masters to have surpassed $ 100 million at auction.
Thursday’s auction at Sotheby’s was also to offer for sale one of Rembrandt’s 136 biblical paintings, “Abraham and the Angels,” with an estimated price of $ 20 million to $ 30 million.
It seemed poised to break the record for a Rembrandt at auction, $ 33.2 million in 2009, but the work was eventually pulled from sale.
“Abraham and the Angels” has been in private hands for 150 years and was last sold at auction, in 1848, for … $ 64.
tu-pdh-lbc / dga
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