This past week, twelve works entered Skate’s Top 5000 following Christie’s and Sotheby’s auctions of Old Master works.
The most valuable painting was A Sacra Conversazione: The Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of Alexandria by Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), which sold at Sotheby’s on January 27 for $16,882,500, including buyer’s premium and against a pre-auction estimate of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000. Following the conclusion of the week’s sales, the painting came in at #231 in Skate’s ranking.
In general, the sales appeared to be healthy, as all of the works sold either within or above their estimate ranges. Some sold for well above their high estimates, one of the most noteworthy of which was Perino del Vaga’s The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist, which sold for $2,098,500 against a high estimate of $400,000.
The one repeat sale – Claude Joseph Vernet’s A Mediterranean Harbor at sunset with fisherfolk at the water’s edge, a lighthouse and a man of war at anchor in the bay – achieved a positive investment return of 7.18% when it sold for $2,434,500 against an estimate range of $1,000,000 to $1,500,000. Previously, it had sold in December 2000 for $1,024,822.
Interestingly, the two works that we highlighted in our January 14 issue of Skate’s Market Notes as likely to achieve negative returns – Lucas Cranach II’s Portrait of Lady, Three-Quarter Length, In a Green Velvet and Orange Dress and Pearl- Embroidered Black Hat and Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ The Martyrdom Of Saint Paul – failed to sell this week.
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