Inaugurating the winter auction season of Old Master and British Paintings, Christie’s evening sale (Dec 4) reached a total of £11,562,250. Top lot Jacob Jordaens’s The Meeting of Odysseus and Nausicaa, sold for £2,057,250 including Buyer’s Premium, established the world record price for the artist at auction, largely surpassing its estimated price (£500,000-£800,000). The religious painting Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me, oil on panel by Lucas Cranach I, has also attracted much attention, being purchased for £1,049,250. A rarity at auction was Paul Brill’s oil on copper with Saint Jerome praying in a rocky landscape (fig. 1), which totalized £505,250

At Christie’s day sale (Dec 5) highlights were Antonio Joli’s veduta with The Bacino di San Marco, Venice, with the Punta della Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore (fig. 2), sold for £133,250, and the articulated capriccio portraying the Interior of a Baroque church with elegant figures (£103,250), attributed to Wilhelm Schuber van Ehrenberg and to Hieronymus Janssens, but still seeking an in-depth iconographic and stylistic analysis. Commenting on this auction result (£3,216,250), Clementine Kerr (Specialist, Head of Day Sale), stated that “this sale saw Dutch and Flemish works perform particularly well”, in a sense reinforcing the trend of the day before.

Sotheby’s £58,061,500 evening sale (5 Dec) has entered the history of Old Master most memorable auctions when its top lot, Raphael’s Head of a Young Apostle (black chalk over pounced, dotted outlines, fig. 3), was sold for £29,721,250. This preparatory drawing is a study for one of the figures in The Transfiguration (Vatican Museums), Raphael’s last masterpiece. Possibly acquired by Thomas Howard, 21^st Earl of Arundel (1585-1646), the black chalk was inherited by William Cavendish, 2^nd Duke of Devonshire (1672-1729) and kept thereafter in the family collection at Chatsworth, Derbyshire. Even if bidding started quite slowly, Henry Wyndham (Chairman, Sotheby’s Europe) could feel that “it was going in the right direction, it was going upwards”. The 17-minute battle culminated with the triumph of the bidder on the telephone with Natasha Mendelsohn (Deputy Director, Sotheby’s), greeted with applause by the room. Underbidder Stephen Ongpin confirmed, however, that “it was the right price for a fantastic drawing” (Bloomberg). Only Raphael could, in fact, beat Raphael, as the Head of a Young Apostle, raising £29,721,250 broke the record of another black chalk by Sanzio, the Head of a Muse, sold for £29,161,250 at Christie’s (London, 8 Dec 2009). Additionally, the Head of a Young Apostle achieved the second highest price for any Old Master after Peter Paul Rubens’s Massacre of the Innocents, which fetched £49,506,605 on 10 July 2002 (Sotheby’s London).

Along with Raphael’s drawing, Peregrine Cavendish (12^th Duke of Devonshire and Deputy Chairman, Sotheby’s) offered for sale two 15^th-century Flemish illuminated manuscripts from Chatsworth, among which only Louis de Gruuthuse’s copy of The Deeds of Sir Gillion de Trazegnies in the Middle East was sold (for £3,849,250, on behalf of the J. Paul Getty Museum).

Among the paintings, the most successful lots were Jan Havicksz. Steen’s The Prayer before the Meal (fig. 4), from the collection of Sudley Castle, Glocestershire, auctioned at £5,641,250, and the two Tuscan masterpieces of the sale: the 16^th-century Portrait of Giovanni Gaddi (fig. 5), sold for £1,273,250, and the set of four Scenes from the Passion of Christ, remarkably executed in tempera with gold and silver leaf on linen canvas by Niccolò di Pietro Gerini (£1,105,250).

Sotheby’s day sale (6 Dec), reaching £4,409,150, was enlivened by the two most expensive religious paintings: Bernardo Strozzi’s Saint Jerome meditating over the Bible (£169,250) and Saint Francis in Ecstasy, ascribed to El Greco’s workshop (£163,250).

Most prized still lives were those by Jan Brueghel II (Christie’s evening sale, lot 20, £1,049,250), Bathasar van der Ast (fig. 6), Jacob van Hulsdonck, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Jan Davidsz. De Heem (all sold at Sotheby’s evening sale, as lots 7, 10, 35 and 37, respectively for £1,497,250, £847,65, £713,250 and £612,450).

Among British paintings, Joseph Wright of Derby’s A Blacksmith’s Shop (sold at Christie’s for £914,850, fig. 7), George Romney’s Portrait of a lady and a child and Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Sir John St. Aubyn, (both sold at Christie’s day sale, respectively for £79,250 and £73,250) are worth a mention.

Seascapes and Italian vedute also attracted bidders, as witnessed by Giuseppe Zocchi’s A view of the Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, Florence, with the Ospedale degli Innocenti (sold at Christie’s evening sale for £764,850), Bernardo Bellotto’s Venice, The Grand Canal: looking south-west, from the Rialto Bridge to the Palazzo Foscari (fig. 8), Willem van de Velde’s Shipping in a calm offshore with figures on the shore by a rowing boat, a man-of-war lying off, Francesco Guardi’s Venice, the Punta della Dogana and Salomon van Ruysdael’s An estuary scene with smalschips on a broad reach before a gentle breeze (all sold at Sotheby’s evening sale, respectively for £3,289,250, £1,945,250, £553,250 and £421,250).

Despite the prices achieved by Giovanni Baglione’s Saint John the Baptist in the wilderness (£313,250) and Andrea Vaccaro’s Lot and his daughters (£289,250) at Sotheby’s evening sale, there have been better times for Italian Seicento art market.