Old Masters

Art marketcomment

Botticelli's 'stunning and puzzling' Man of Sorrows

The painting, sold last week at Sotheby's for $45.4m, was listed among workshop and studio pictures in Ronald Lightbown’s 1978 catalogue of Botticelli’s work, before being included as an autograph work in an exhibition at Frankfurt's Städel Museum in 2009. Here, in a pair of opinion pieces, two Renaissance experts give their contrasting views on its attribution

Late Botticelli painting sputters at Sotheby’s Old Masters auction in New York, selling for $45.4m

The star lot of the sale, a rediscovered and austere portrait of Christ, hammered just below its estimate

'Cancelled' Madonna and Child found beneath Botticelli's $40m Man of Sorrows

Infrared images of the painting, which is due to be sold at Sotheby's in New York later this month, show that an earlier composition lies underneath

Rediscovered Bernhard Strigel painting found in a Toulouse home expected to sell for up to €800,000

The panel is thought to be the pair of Strigel's Thurifer Angel, which was bought by the Louvre Abu Dhabi in Paris in 2008

New ‘Caravaggio’ work—once estimated at €1,500 and now worth millions—offered to Spain

Old Master painting was pulled from auction last year—but will the government pay full market price?

Omicron won't thwart my Old Master mission

My trip to Munich's Alte Pinakothek was worth the multiple levels of Covid-related admin

'There are too many auctions and not enough collectors': Christie's and Sotheby's thin Old Master sales fetch a combined £29.3m in London

The star of the sales was a pair of half-length portraits by Van Dyck that sold for £6.2m at Sotheby's, the second-highest price for the artist at auction

Podcastspodcast

Big money, new collectors: the low-down on the New York auctions

Plus, Fabergé in London and a rediscovered Dürer

Hosted by Ben Luke, Aimee Dawson and Martin Bailey. with guest speaker Anna Brady. Produced by Julia Michalska and David Clack. With Henrietta Bentall
Sponsored byChristie's

Christie's to sell 'The Vision', the last of Constable's famous view of Salisbury Cathedral left in private hands

The oil sketch, Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds, has never appeared at auction before and is expected for sell for between £2m to £3m this December in London

Painting recovered 40 years after its theft in East Germany may be an unknown Rembrandt

Analysis of the work—stolen in East Germany’s biggest art heist—suggests that it was painted by the Old Master rather than others in his studio

Another Botticelli hits the market: Sotheby's to sell Botticelli's The Man of Sorrows for in excess of $40m

Auction house will sell the painting in January and is dubbing it "The defining masterpiece of Botticelli's late career". But what exactly does that mean?

Contemporary paintings will hang with the Frick’s Old Masters in new art series

Doron Langberg will pair off with Hans Holbein, and Salman Toor will join Vermeer in the Breuer building this week

Recently restored Cupid joins nine Vermeer masterpieces for blockbuster show

Dresden exhibition will include Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window along with key international loans and works by other Dutch Golden Age artists

First full image of ‘new’ Vermeer with uncovered Cupid released by Dresden museum

Drastically altered composition of Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window can now be seen in all its glory ahead of major exhibition

Bellotto's view of Verona sells for record £10.5m at Christie's Old Master sale in London

Seven new artist records were set in tonight's auction, including for Georges de La Tour, while a second highest prices were set for female painters Angelica Kauffman and Artemisia Gentileschi

Head of a bear sets new record for a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, selling on a single bid for £8.8m at Christie's

The tiny "Post It note" drawing was sold by Thomas Kaplan, owner of the Leiden collection of Rembrandts, who bought it in 2008 based on a fax

'An opportunity for bargain hunters' or a waste of time? Italy relaxes stringent export laws for Old Masters and antiques worth less than €13,500

Lower-value older works and those by artists who died less than 50 years ago no longer need an export licence to leave the country—but the process can still be slow

England may be through to the Euro finals, but Sotheby's Old Master paintings sale scores an own goal

The auction house's £17.2m offering in London tonight was only 57% sold, overshadowed by the football match

Art marketpreview

London Art Week finds the revolutionary in ancient relics with hybrid selling event

Collaborative shows from 2 to 16 July features over 40 galleries, with Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi chief curating an online exhibition for those who cannot make the trip

Charles I disposed of this Van Dyck portrait when he signed the sitter's death warrant. Now it is up for sale at Christie's

The 17th century painting of the Earl of Strafford, recently discovered to have been in the Royal collection, is expected to sell for up to £5m in London in July

Colnaghi gallery to lead research into €1,500 painting now believed to be by Caravaggio

Established dealership will manage restoration and authentication of disputed work offered at auction for €1,500

'Cranach' painting of Venus at centre of Old Masters fakes scandal must be returned to Prince of Liechtenstein, court rules

Seized as part of a forgery investigation, the work has been fully studied and must no longer be kept as evidence

Old Mastersanalysis

Today’s obsession with assigning singular attribution to Old Masters may be lucrative, but it is often misleading

The cult of the individual reigns supreme but in reality Renaissance works were often not made by one hand

The curious saga of a Russian cosmetics entrepreneur and his €107m Cellini painting

Bizarre story of a painting discovered in a French village, said by its owner to be a self-portrait by Cellini, is told in a new BBC radio series

Podcastspodcast

Old Masters meet Brutalism: inside Frick Madison in New York

Plus, the story of a notorious forger and artist Collier Schorr on August Sander

Hosted by Ben Luke. with guest speaker Vincent Noce. Produced by Julia Michalska, David Clack, Aimee Dawson and Henrietta Bentall
Obituariesfeature

Thirty-seven years with Richard Feigen: the dealer who was a collector first—and sold to feed his habit

Frances Beatty remembers a mentor who would rather give you a lecture on Max Beckmann or Peter Saul than sell you a Van Gogh, but who could do both

Obituariesfeature

Remembering Richard Feigen, the high-profile dealer with an outsider's straight-talking outlook on the art industry

New York gallerist railed against auction houses, the inflation of prices and reputations, the industrial expansion of the art market, while still doing great business

Family members fall out over Rembrandt stored in a New Jersey basement

An heir of an early owner claims that family members conspired to have it sold without his knowledge

‘The ultimate dealer of Old Master paintings’: New York dealer Richard Feigen has died, aged 90

The Met director Max Hollein pays tribute to the late gallery owner and collector, who also promoted artists from Max Beckmann to Peter Saul