Since Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold for $236.4 million last November, clinching the title of second most expensive artwork to sell at auction, the secondary market’s mantra can best be summed up as “collectors will open their hearts and their wallets for exceptional work.”
On Tuesday, Christie’s put that dictum to the test with its Old Masters Evening Sale in London, a 40-lot offering that landed comfortably within its pre-sale estimate of roughly £25 million to £37.5 million (excluding fees). In total, Collectors spent £38.9 million ($51.4 million) at Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale in London on Tuesday, pushing the auction past its pre-sale high estimate as competition for a handful of exceptional works drove a string of artist records.
Led by Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington and two still lifes by Jan van Huysum, the sale sold 96 percent by value and 90 percent by lot, underscoring continued demand for top-quality Old Master paintings. There was strong bidding for a handful of standout works—including two sumptuous still lifes by Jan van Huysum—even as buyers passed on three lots and a fourth was withdrawn before reaching the block.
The sale featured relatively few disappointments: The three passed lots included a panel of The Resurrection of Christ by the Master of the Oberstenfeld Altarpiece, Thomas Gainsborough’s Portrait of Dorothea, Lady Eden, and Canaletto’s Venice, San Giorgio Maggiore from the Bacino di San Marco. The withdrawn work was Michiel van Musscher’s A Portrait of the Artist in His Studio. The results suggest that buyers remain highly selective rather than indiscriminately bullish. When quality, rarity, and fresh provenance aligned, estimates quickly became little more than suggestions.
The night’s biggest winner was Jan van Huysum.
The Dutch master’s sumptuous still life of peaches and grapes, overflowing with plums, raspberries, currants, melon, hazelnuts and flowers arranged before a stone column and terracotta urn, sold for £6.52 million ($8.65 million) after carrying an estimate of £3 million to £4 million. Its companion painting, an elaborate bouquet of roses, peonies, narcissi, poppies and orange blossom arranged in a sculpted terracotta vase with a bird’s nest perched nearby, followed close behind at £5.54 million ($7.35 million), comfortably above its £2.5 million to £3.5 million estimate. Both pictures set a record for the artist.
Christie’s devoted an unusually substantial section of its catalogue to the pair, tracing their distinguished provenance through some of Europe’s great eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections. The floral still life was so admired that Caroline Louise, Margravine of Baden, spent three years trying to acquire it through her Paris agent. When negotiations finally failed, the agent lamented that he had missed out on what he called “the most brilliant” Van Huysum he knew.
The sale’s biggest surprise, however, may have been an anonymous one.
A haunting 17th-century Dutch vanitas still life showing two skulls resting on a marble ledge beside a quill and sheet of paper was estimated at just £80,000 to £120,000. Collectors had other ideas. The picture eventually sold for £431,800 (more than $572,500), just over five times its low estimate, making it one of the evening’s strongest performances. Catalogued simply as the work of a “Dutch School” painter, it served as a reminder that compelling images and perhaps a lingering hope of a future attribution can matter more than a famous signature.
Another standout came in the form of an unusual Renaissance history painting by Girolamo da Santacroce, which depicts the meeting between the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II and the newly appointed Patriarch Gennadius following the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Estimated at £100,000 to £150,000, it climbed to £673,100 ($892,000)
The picture carries a fascinating backstory. Christie’s catalogue describes it as an exceptionally rare treatment of a pivotal political moment, when Mehmed sought to consolidate his rule over the former Byzantine capital by installing Gennadius as patriarch of the Orthodox Church. The work also boasts an impressive provenance, having once belonged to Ludovico Manin, the last Doge of Venice, before passing through the collection of William Richard Hamilton, the diplomat remembered for helping secure the Rosetta Stone for the British Museum after Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign.
There were plenty of other healthy results. Louis-Léopold Boilly’s Thirty-five Expressive Heads sold for £914,400 ($1.2 million) against a £400,000-to-£600,000 estimate. A portrait by Adélaïde Labille-Guiard more than doubled its low estimate to bring £1.12 million ($1.49 million), while John Melhuish Strudwick’s richly detailed Victorian painting reached £1.51 million ($2 million), well above its £700,000-to-£1 million estimate.
The evening’s most valuable lot, meanwhile, performed exactly as expected. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s celebrated portrait of the Duke of Wellington realized £9.67 million ($12.8 million), comfortably within its £8 million-to-£12 million estimate and setting a new world auction record for the artist. Christie’s also set new auction highs for Jan van Mieris, Girolamo da Santacroce, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard and John Melhuish Strudwick.
Taken together, the results painted a familiar picture of today’s Old Masters market. Collectors showed little interest in chasing every lot across the block. Instead, they concentrated their firepower on pictures that felt genuinely rare, fresh to market or art historically significant. That dynamic helped propel the two Van Huysums, the anonymous Dutch vanitas, and Girolamo da Santacroce’s historical scene well beyond expectations, while more conventional offerings struggled to find buyers or simply dissipated before the sale began.
For sellers with exceptional material, Tuesday night’s sale offered an encouraging signal. Everyone else was reminded that selectivity remains the defining feature of this market.