Christie's sale update (3) - Old Masters

A reproduction of the Steen in Christie's window -
an indication they expected it to be a star sale

 

I got a big surprise when the Jan Steen Easy come, easy go failed to sell at Christie's recent Old Masters sale. There were claims the estimate of £7/10m was set too high, which Christie's naturally denied, and the lack of a buyer put a big dent in the proceeds from the auction, even though paintings by Rubens, Titian, Canaletto, Breughel and others sold well above their high estimates.

 

I have also discovered there is quite a story behind this sale, involving bitter family feuds and plans to set up a new gallery in the ruins of a stately home in the north of England. The painting was sold in The Hague in 1763 to the 1st Earl of Lonsdale and was on loan to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool from 2010 to September 2012. The Lonsdales occupied Lowther Castle, a neo-Gothic mansion, until 1936 but it subsequently fell into ruin and was leased to a charity in 2010. The charitable trust is developing the building as a visitor attraction, including space for changing displays from the Lonsdale family collection. According to reports, the Steen would have been the centrepiece of the new gallery, but it was decided to sell it instead because of undivulged "changed circumstances" according to a trust spokesman. It's also been reported that the restoration of the Castle was made easier by the resolution of a family dispute which saw the partial disinheritance of the eighth earl by the seventh earl, and legal action by the eighth earl against family members and companies. Who knows what will happened to the Steen now, but I can't help feeling someone could get a Downton Abbey-style drama out of this saga.

 

In contrast, Sotheby's sale a few days later managed to set an auction record for an El Greco, which went for £9m+, more than twice the estimate. It was bought by a Russian buyer, who bought another El Greco at the same sale - Russians are getting into Old Masters in a big way now, along with Asian buyers (the underbidder for the El Greco was Indian).