Very Old Masters

Carol Vogel’s Inside Art column carries this item about the continuing efforts at both auction houses to combine departments and reduce costs. On June 4th, Sotheby’s will auction Antiquities along with Old Master Paintings. Both have been collecting areas that have shown relative strength:

Included in the sale will be three paintings being sold by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art — a Pieter de Hooch, a Gerard ter Borch and a Rubens — as well as antiquities like a monumental granite head of the Egyptian ruler King Nectanebo II estimated at $600,000 to $900,000 and an Egyptian portrait of a mummy painted on wood and dating from the fourth century A.D. estimated at $150,000 to $250,000.

“For the last few years we have exhibited our works together,” said George Wachter, director of Sotheby’s old master paintings department worldwide. “And since we both decided to cut back on the number of works we will sell this season, we thought it might be interesting to put the two sales together.”

Inside Art (New York Times)