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Louvre Abu Dhabi Announces Acquisition of £9.48m Rembrandt Study

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At Sotheby’s in London last December there was a lot of interest in a Rembrandt oil study from the so-called Face of Jesus group that had been in the same family for 60 years. The guaranteed work was covered with an irrevocable bid and estimated at between £6-8m. It sold for a £8.2m hammer price, or £9.48m with fees. We learned today that the buyer was the Louvre Abu Dhabi:

Louvre Abu Dhabi has acquired a rare oil sketch—Head of a young man, with clasped hands: Study of the figure of Christ, ca. 1648–56—by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), one of the most celebrated artists of the Dutch Golden Age. Painted on oak panel in the Dutch Republic (now the Netherlands) and identified as the Master’s work in the 1930s, it belongs to a series of oil sketches referred to as Rembrandt’s Face of Jesus group. Head of a young man was purchased by Louvre Abu Dhabi in December.

This masterpiece is the first work by Rembrandt known to have been acquired for a public collection in the Gulf region. It appeared recently in exhibitions at the Musée du Louvre, Paris; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Detroit Institute of Art; and Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam. It will make its first appearance at Louvre Abu Dhabi in the exhibition Rembrandt, Vermeer & the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre before joining Louvre Abu Dhabi’s permanent collection.

The acquisition of this rare masterpiece follows the unveiling of 11 new additions to Louvre Abu Dhabi’s permanent collection in October 2018. In keeping with the museum’s mission to highlight cross-cultural connections in a variety of forms, last year’s acquisitions include a range of exquisite objects from around the world and the region, including a monumental Buddhist sculpture from China (11th-12th CE), four tapestries from French royal manufacturers depicting The Hunts of Maximilian, the Duke of Brabant, as well as a rare Ottoman horse armour (15th-16th CE).

Manuel Rabaté, Director, Louvre Abu Dhabi, said: “Rembrandt was one of history of art’s greatest storytellers, with an exceptional ability to capture the human soul in his artworks. With this latest acquisition, the first ever Rembrandt joining a museum collection in the Gulf, our visitors can experience the power of his creations first-hand, initially in our opening exhibition for 2019 and following that in our galleries. It will join the 650 artworks of the museum’s collection from cultures around the world, celebrating the universal creativity of humanity”.

Dr. Souraya Noujaim, Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management Director, Louvre Abu Dhabi, added: “We make each new addition to Louvre Abu Dhabi’s expanding collection with great rigor and care, in order to deepen and enhance the museum’s universal narrative. This exceptional work reflects the new cultural perspectives that emerged during the Dutch Golden Age due to international trade expansion and exchange of ideas. It also demonstrates the great Master’s understanding of the fragility and intense spirituality of life, which inspired so many artists after him.”

The Dutch Golden Age was a brief period during the 17th century when the new Dutch merchant republic, freshly independent from the Spanish Crown, was regarded as the most prosperous state in Europe. Worldwide trade led by the Dutch East India Company, combined with military advancements and new developments in art and science, gave the Low Countries (the coastal region of northwestern Europe, consisting of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) an important advantage throughout Europe and the world. Major commissions brought Vermeer and Rembrandt to the forefront of a new artistic movement, in which Protestant workers developed new themes and iconographies depicting a more realistic daily life.

In Head of a young man, the face of the black-haired man seems to be both illuminated and rendered through large brushed gestures. The same model appears in a series of studies and works by Rembrandt that was created during the same period as the artist’s renowned Supper at Emmaus (Paris, Musée du Louvre, ca. 1648).

Head of a young man is one of the finest examples of Rembrandt’s seven surviving oil sketches from the Face of Jesus group.  When viewed with the other surviving sketches, it reveals the way in which Rembrandt could find the best angle or profile to use light to portray Jesus “after life,” with the model probably coming from the local Jewish community.

The portrait and subject matter show a new representation in the Christian world. The clasped hands emphasise narrative not distinguishable at first glance. And Rembrandt chose to represent a man in prayer, rather than a king, expressing—in an ecumenical way—the humble humanity of man.

The exhibition Rembrandt, Vermeer & the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from The Leiden Collection and the Musée du Louvre is co-curated by Blaise Ducos, Chief Curator of Dutch and Flemish paintings at the Musée du Louvre and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, Curator of The Leiden Collection and a specialist in 17th century Dutch and Flemish art. The exhibition will be on view from February 14 through May 18, 2019, at Louvre Abu Dhabi.

 

Christie’s Has Richard Feigen Collection in May

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The dealer Richard Feigen has been quick to take on the auction houses in the press (over issues both serious and petty) but even quicker to go to them when selling his greatest treasures. Over the last decade he has auctioned, often taking risk off the table with various forms of guarantees, works by Max Beckmann, Orazio Gentilischi and J.M.W. Turner. These last two works were bought by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles for substantial sums.

At the height of his career, Feigen would make these kinds of museum sales directly himself without needing the pressure of underbidders to achieve his price. Over the years he sold works to more than a hundred museums, including the Getty, the Louvre and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The paintings were by a broad range of artists from Rembrandt to Jasper Johns to James Rosenquist. That Feigen turned to the auction houses in his late seventies and early eighties to achieve top dollar for the works he bought over a lifetime tells us more about the changing shape of the art market than it does about Feigen’s skill or stature.

Feigen likes to call himself a collector dressed up as a dealer but that’s just what dealers used to say to try to take the sting out the profits they were making off their clients, especially museums. Everyone likes to buy works that seem like they will never be sold. What makes Feigen different isn’t his acting like a collector but his being the last of the dealers who bought strategically and opportunistically believing that, over time, art would out perform money.

Feigen’s approach was born in the inflation-cursed seventies. He often contrasted the limited number of great works of art against the profligate printing of money. With that in mind, Feigen bought what he thought best across a wide range of styles, regions and time periods. Although his most significant holdings have now been liquidated, Feigen still has work that must be sold. Today, Christie’s announced several of those—including a $800k John Constable, a $3m Guercino and $4m Carraci—are going to be sold in early May. Here’s the auction house’s release:Continue Reading

Christie’s Sells £11.4m Leyden Drawing to Benefit Rugby School

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This drawing by Lucas van Leyden which measures a tiny 11 x 5 inches was just sold for £11.4m, an order of magnitude above its £1.5m estimate. Christie’s sale to benefit Rugby School brought in £14.79m. According to Christie’s, “the sale inspired widespread interest from across the globe with registered bidders from 33 countries across five continents. Over 40% of the lots were sold to or directly underbid by online bidders on Christie’s Live.

Getty Buys Previously Unknown Quentin Metsys Painting

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Christ as the Man of Sorrows, 1520-30, oil on panel, 19 ½ x 14 ½ inches, Quentin Metsys (Netherlandish, 1465 or 1466 – 1530) [pre-conservation]
The Getty Museum in Los Angeles announced today that it bought a previously unknown work of art by Quentin Metsys that has been in a private collection for centuries.

The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today the acquisition of Christ as the Man of Sorrows, painted between 1520-30 by the great Netherlandish master Quentin Metsys (1465 or 1466 – 1530; variously spelled Massys, Matsys, Metsijs; Quinten). The painting has been in a private collection for centuries and was previously unknown to art historians. Its discovery and attribution expands the oeuvre of one of the leading painters in early sixteenth-century Antwerp.

“Christ as the Man of Sorrows is a powerful and deeply moving painting that exemplifies the sophisticated devotional imagery that made Metsys famous, and played a major role in Antwerp’s renown as a leading center of painting in the early 16th century,” said Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “This discovery adds a major masterwork both to the artist’s oeuvre and to the Getty Museum’s paintings collection. It ranks among our most important 16th-century Northern European paintings and is already attracting much attention from scholars of this period.”

Quentin Metsys was the most prominent and esteemed painter in Antwerp during the early 16th century. He was known for his compelling portraits, sophisticated use of color, and representations of emotion and expression. Drawing on the example of 15th-century predecessors and receptive to Italian influences, his work marked a turning point in the history of Netherlandish art. Over the course of an extremely successful career Metsys introduced new types of portraiture and secular painting, positioning himself as a leader in Antwerp as the city developed a reputation for artistic innovation. Metsys’s reputation endured as the “father” of Antwerp painting, and his works were particularly prized in the early 17th century by collectors and artists such as Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). The Getty’s new paintingis a powerful yet intimate depiction of Christ, who is shown wearing a crown of thorns that graphically pierces his flesh, his physical torment emphasized by flowing tears. In a remarkably fine state of preservation, the devotional painting is a superbly executed treatment of a popular and widespread subject at the time.

“In Christ as the Man of Sorrows, Metsys combined late medieval specificity – still meaningful in the early 16th century – with a new emphasis on Christ’s humanity. In contrast to earlier devotional images, Christ as the Man of Sorrows was intended to elicit compassion from viewers,” said Davide Gasparotto, senior curator of paintings at the Getty Museum. “This exceptionally moving painting is a striking testament to the artist’s skill and innovation.”

In the Netherlands, Christ as the Man of Sorrows and related subjects, such as the Salvator Mundi, were often paired with an image of the sorrowing Virgin or Virgin in prayer.  Christ as the Man of Sorrows may have once been half of a diptych as part of an altarpiece with the weeping Virgin or perhaps as a separate panel with the Virgin as a pendant. Alternatively, given its scale (19 ½ by 14 ½ inches) it could have been painted as an autonomous devotional image which, at the request of a patron, could have been combined with a depiction of the Virgin. The original engaged frame (now lost) featured an arched top, surrounding the radiance and covering the upper corners of the panel – a typical configuration that focused attention on the head of Christ.

In the late 19th century, the picture, then in a princely collection in Bavaria, was listed in an auction catalog attributed to the 15th-century Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. The painting remained with the family bearing this attribution through the 20th century. It was never published or exhibited. In 2016, experts assessed the work and attributed it to Metsys, notably for the delicate modeling, crisp details and close resemblance to the artist’s large-scale narrative treatments of other Christian subjects, such as his Ecce Homo (Venice, Palazzo Ducale).

Christ as a Man of Sorrows was exported from Germany to the UK, and the Getty Museum purchased the painting recently in a private sale.

This is the first work by Metsys in the Getty’s collection and the only painting by the master in Southern California. After a short period of conservation and technical study, it will go on view in Spring 2019, exhibited to the public for the first time in modern history, at the Getty Museum, Getty Center.

Christie’s to Sell Shickman Collection Led by Spanish Still Lives

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Juan van der Hamen y León, Still life with flowers and fruit ($8-10m)

Christie’s announces this morning a single-owner Old Master sale for May of 2019 featuring the estate of Lila & Herman Shickman, an important dealer in Old Master paintings. The collection is led by two important still lives with a combined low estimate of $10m.

Christie’s announces Masterworks from the Estate of Lila & Herman Shickman, an important single owner sale of Old Master and 19th century European paintings from the private collection of one of the leading American dealers in the 20th century. Comprised of more than a dozen works, the auction will take place on May 2, 2019, after completing a global tour to Madrid, London, Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

Highlighting the collection is one of the most important Spanish still lifes remaining in private hands, Still life with flowers and fruit by Juan van der Hamen y León, which was last at auction in 1969 and is poised to establish a new world auction record for the artist and for any Spanish 17th century still life (estimate: $8,000,000-12,000,000). Another highlight featured in the Collection is Luis Meléndez’s Still life with artichokes and tomatoes in a landscape (estimate: $2,000,000-4,000,000).

Ben Hall, Chairman, Old Masters, comments, “The Lila and Herman Shickman Collection is a veritable treasure trove offering unparalleled quality. As a dealer and trusted advisor to top collectors and museums, Herman Shickman’s connoisseurship provided him the foresight to collect masterworks ahead of market trends such as Van der Hamen’s still life, which is regarded as one of the finest examples of his influential oeuvre left in private hands.”

Van der Hamen’s Still life with flowers and fruit exhibits the brilliant clarity of execution, purity of design and refined description of surface detail that are the hallmarks of his style. The artist’s pioneering paintings helped to establish an enduring tradition of still life paintings in Spain that would extend through the following centuries, finding its culmination in the 20th century with the revolutionary works of Pablo Picasso. Celebrated in his day as one of the greatest painters of his generation, Juan van der Hamen y León (1598-1631) was descended from a historic Flemish noble family. He was a member of the official guardians of the monarch, a position which enabled him access to the Spanish Royal Court through which he earned his most important commissions.

Still life with flowers and fruit presents an assortment of luxurious objects arranged in three planes. From left to right, the artist has portrayed a bouquet of tulips, blue and yellow irises, roses, and other flowers in a Venetian crystal vase, a metal plate of figs, and a basket of peaches, pears and plums. On the lower ledge van der Hamen has painted two terracotta vases, a metal plate of cherries and plums, a black glass bottle and scattered stone fruit, and on the uppermost shelf is a basket of green pea pods and cherries. The work has a distinguished exhibition history and was a highlight of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s European Painting galleries.

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