Sandro Botticelli: Young Man Holding a Roundel
Rembrandt van Rijn Abraham and the Angels
Sotheby’s to sell paintings by Botticelli and Rembrandt In January 2021, Sotheby’s will auction Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Young Man Holding a Roundel’ (one of the most significant portraits, of any period, ever to appear at auction, carrying an estimate of $80 million) along with Rembrandt’s ‘Abraham and the Angels’ (estimate of $20/30 million)]]>
October 1, 2020. Source: Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s will offer one of Sandro Botticelli’s very finest portraits, “Young Man Holding a Roundel”, as the highlight of the annual Masters Week sales series in New York in January 2021. Estimate available upon request, the work will establish art market history as one of the most significant portraits, of any period, ever to appear at auction – alongside Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (sold in 2006 for $87.9 million) and Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr Gachet (sold in 1990 for $82.5 million).
According to Sotheby’s, “Young Man Holding a Roundel” is the pictorial synthesis of the ideals, the magic and the beauty of Renaissance Florence where, for the first time since antiquity, the individual and the human figure were at the center of both life and art, and would come to define our understanding of humanism as we know it today.
Measuring just 6 ½ by 8 ⅜ inches (16 x 21cm), Rembrandt‘s “Abraham and the Angels” is a profoundly beautiful, gem-like painting on panel from 1646 that stands among the finest works by Rembrandt ever to come to auction. The painting last appeared at auction in London in 1848, when it sold for £64, and returns to the block this January with an estimate of $20/30 million. The work was recently the principal subject of an exhibition at the Frick Museum in New York in 2017 dedicated to Rembrandt’s depictions of Abraham from the Book of Genesis.
Just this summer, Sotheby’s achieved a new auction record for a self-portrait by Rembrandt when Self-portrait of the artist sold for $18.7 million in the London sale “Rembrandt to Richter” (July 2020). In December 2018, the Louvre Abu Dhabi acquired the artist’s work “Head of a young man, with clasped hands: Study of the figure of Christ” from a Sotheby’s London auction for $12.1 million. The work, which was identified as a Rembrandt in the 1930s, belongs to a series of oil sketches referred to as his “Face of Jesus” group. Prior to that sale, the last biblical scene to appear at auction was Saint James the Greater from 1661, which sold for $25.8 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2007.
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Sotheby’s to auction a self-portrait by Rembrandt (news, June 2020)
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