Christie's Old Masters Sales Total $138.3 Million

LONDON

:Christie's weeklong sales of Old Master paintings, drawings, European furniture and sculpture, led by the collection of Antonio Champalimaud, totaled $138.3 million. A total of 21 works of art sold for more than $1 million, as the more classic categories demonstrated their continued appeal to both new and established collectors.

The Champalimaud collection achieved a final total of $68,452,825, the second highest total for a single-owner collection ever sold in Europe, after the Rothschild sale also sold by Christie's in 1999. The sale was led by "The Bucintoro at the Molo Venice, on Ascension Day" by Canaletto, which sold for a record $20,086,024. Proceeds from the two-day auction have been donated to a medical foundation set up by Champalimaud for the Portuguese nation.

Further highlights from the Champalimaud collection included a pair of views by Canaletto of Venice - "The Piazzetta looking West" and "The Piazza San Marco, looking West," which realized $3,162,600, and two pendant canvases by Francesco Guardi, "The Island of San Cristoforo, Murano," sold for $3,162,600, and "The Grand Canal, Venice, with the Church of the Scalzi and the Lista di Spagna," which realized $2,965,816.

The works of art in the Champalimaud collection included a magnificent pair of Kangxi models of leopards that roared away $4,146,520, a world record price for any Chinese export porcelain at auction, and a Louis XVI ormolu-mounted ebony and Japanese lacquer commode à encoignures by Claude-Charles Saunier with inset Sicilian jasper top that sold for $4,146,520, becoming the 15th highest price ever paid for a piece of French furniture and establishing a record for a lacquer commode sold at auction.

London dealer Michael Cohen of Cohen & Cohen was successful bidder on the Kangxi leopards. Cohen said he believes the pair of magnificently snarling leopards were very likely imperial pieces made for the Emperor Kangxi, and therefore not export porcelain. He said representations of any leopards are extremely rare and these are the only known pair.

Further records were established as a pair of Louis XVI ormolu-mounted ebony, Japanese lacquer and japanned tole étagère by Martin Carlin made a record for a pair of etageres sold at auction when they realized $2,965,816; the pair of parcel-gilt polychrome marble, alabaster, gesso, paste and lead standing male and female Royal blackamoors, established a record for pair of blackamoors at $1,489,936, and a set of four Louis XVI ormolu five-light candelabra hold the record for candelabra at $1,785,112.

Italian bronzes swept the board on July 6 in the important European furniture, sculpture and carpets sale. A bronze group attributed to Antonio Susini, cast from a model by Giambologna, sold for $4,134,720, setting a world record price for Susini. A bronze group of "Nessus Abducting Deianira," circa 1580-1600, is attributed to Antonio Susini, Giambologna's chief workshop assistant. Antonio Susini, known for his top rate casting skills and superlative finishes, made this bronze very early in his career. Further highlights included a recently rediscovered and unpublished Medici bronze group by the distinguished Eighteenth Century Florentine sculptor Giuseppe Piamontini, which realized $2,172,480, a world record price for the artist. A bronze group of Grand Prince Ferdinando de' Medici on Horseback, circa 1695, the piece is considered one of the most important artistic commissions of the late Medici era.

A rediscovered Fifteenth Century renaissance masterpiece of a bronze model of cupid, circa 1480-90, made $2,368,704. It had been used as a paperweight for the past 30 years.

In the week's sales of important Old Master pictures, drawings and paintings from the Champalimaud collection, a rediscovered drawing by Andrea del Sarto, the last great Florentine artist of the High Renaissance, sold for $11,395,008, a world record price for the artist. "Head of St Joseph," a study for a picture now in the Pitti Palace, Florence, became the third most expensive Old Master drawing ever sold at auction. A photograph from the 1920s had alerted scholars to the existence of this work, but its whereabouts have been a mystery. The work reappeared after more than 50 years in a private Swiss collection.

Christie's sale of Old Master pictures realized $36,006,494. The auction was led by a recently restituted work by Francesco Guardi, considered to be one of the finest pictures by the artist offered in recent years. The superb Venetian view painted by Francesco Guardi (Venice, 1712-1793), titled "The Grand Canal, Venice, with the Palazzo Bembo" was bought by the Getty Museum for $7,605,488.

Also included in the sale was a still life by Jan van Huysum (Amsterdam, 1682-1749). Fruit, flowers and insects on a marble ledge, a pillar to the left, a wood behind, is a remarkable work in exceptional condition and realized $6,534,880.

Jan van der Cappelle, arguably the greatest Dutch marine painter of the Seventeenth Century, was represented in the sale by "A kaag and smak in a calm," with fisherman pulling in their catch from a rowboat in the foreground, a Dutch frigate and other boats beyond. The work sold for $6,242,896, a world record price for the artist at auction.

A portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte, painted in 1803 by Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835) is one of five full-length portraits commissioned by Napoleon between March 1802 and September 1803, only two of which have survived. It sold for $2,349,776, a world record price for the artist.

Prices reported include buyer's premium.

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