Watteau’s La Surprise goes for $24 million at Christie’s

Christie’s re-discovered Goya drawings (including this and this) made nearly $8 million as the pre-opener to last night’s Old Master’s sale in London. The star of the Evening sale was the Watteau found in the corner of a country house during a routine valuation trip. But the sale had other surprises with Sir Thomas Lawrence’s sketch portrait of his mother Lucy Lawrence going for nearly five times the high estimate or $736,000. The catalogue essay reads like a scene from Trollope but the price was no fiction. Even the sales, second highest lot was the subject of some surprise and doubt. van Dyck’s Rearing Stallion was only recently accepted as the work of the master and that was enough to interest buyers to the tune of 3 million pounds.