Sir Peter Paul Rubens
Lot and his Daughters (circa 1613-1614)
Rubens’s ‘Lot and his Daughters’ sells for £44,9 million Peter Paul Rubens’s “Lot and his Daughters” (circa 1613-14) achieved £44,882,500 /$58,167,720 /€52,422,760 at Christie’s Old Masters auction on 7 July 2016.]]>
July 7, 2016, source: Christie’s
The work sold to a collector on the phone in Christie’s Old Master and British Paintings Evening Sale, part of Classic Week in London, after a bidding battle lasting fourteen minutes with four bidders involved. One of the most important paintings by the artist to have remained in private hands, it is an outstanding example of Rubens’s early maturity.
“Lot and his Daughters” is a cautionary story, which Rubens returned to throughout his career. Pulsating with life, this biblical canvas illustrates the events after Lot and his family have fled the immoral city of Sodom having escaped to the desolate mountain town of Zoar.
This is the second highest price ever paid for an Old Master painting at auction, the record also being held by Rubens whose “The Massacre of the Innocents” sold for £49,506,648 at auction in 2002.
This work is an outstanding example of Rubens’s early maturity and one of the most important paintings by the artist to have remained in private hands. “Lot and his Daughters” boasts a distinguished provenance, once forming part of the collections of wealthy Antwerp merchants; a Governor-General of the Spanish Netherlands; Joseph I Holy Roman Emperor; and the Dukes of Marlborough. It was included in the first volume of “The English Connoisseur” from 1766 and has since been listed in all the major publications on Rubens’s work.
Related content
Prado Museum “exhibits” its Rubens on the Web (news, 2010)
Follow us on:
