LONDON.- As the year’s sales draw to a close, collectors came together in London this week to celebrate the heights of artistic creativity over the last two millennia. Sotheby’s London sales concluded with a combined total of £45,566,613 / $58,084,687 / €51,240,012. Strong performances across five sales, including Old Master Paintings, Sculpture and a dedicated sale of portrait miniatures saw exceptional sell-through rates with totals exceeding their pre-sale estimates.

OLD MASTERS PAINTINGS, 5-6 December
• Together the Old Masters Evening and Day sales totalled £34,563,175 / $44,030,820 / €38,883,625

• Participants from 22 countries with strong bidding from new and traditional markets, particularly UK

• 85.7% sell-through rate achieved for the Evening sale - the highest achieved in the category in London, with 45% of lots selling above top estimates

• 4 auction records achieved in the Evening sale (The Master of the Aachen Altar, The Master of Saint Veronica, Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael (record in sterling) and Erasmus Quellinus the Younger).

• The Evening sale presented fresh-to-the-market works with almost half of the lots offered having not appeared on the market for over 30 years

• Private collectors dominated bidding (75% vs. 25% dealer by lot) with two institutional purchases (Evening sale: Lot 6, Day sale: Lot 188)

• Over 7,250 people visited the pre-sale exhibition over 5 days

• A late night view, with a panel discussion as well as a DJ, was advertised on Sotheby’s social platform, in response to which over 1,500 request for tickets were received, primarily from people aged 18 – 34, predominantly women

Highlights of the Old Master Evening Sale

Top lots
• Rare oil sketch by Rembrandt realised £9,480,800 ($12,080,435 / €10,665,921), over its estimate (lot 18, est. £6 – 8 million). Appearing on the market for the first time in 60 years, the touching portrait of Christ until recently hung in the artist’s house in Amsterdam. In preparation for display in the seminal exhibition “Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus” at the Louvre, Paris in 2011, the painting underwent extensive cleaning and conservation during which two fingerprints were found, presumably those of the artist himself.

• Royal portraits of King Charles I’s two eldest children by Sir Anthony van Dyck, among the last works painted by the artist, made £2,620,000 ($3,338,404 / €2,947,506 ) and £790,000 ($1,006,618 / €888,752) respectively (lots 29 and 30, est. £2-3m and £600,000-800,000). Depicting the eleven year-old Prince of Wales (later King Charles II), and his nine year-old sister Mary (the mother of the future king, William III), the works were painted on the eve of the English Civil War and provide a penetrating likeness of the royal children at a time when their world, and the Stuart monarchy, was on the brink of collapse.

Strong performance for Dutch and Flemish art
• Half of the works in the sale were by Dutch and Flemish artists

• 90% of them sold for a combined a total of £24,685,550 / $31,454,326, well above estimate (est. £16.8 -23.7m)

• Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael’s A Harleempje: a panoramic view of Haarlem and the bleaching fields seen from the north-west realised £2,650,000 ($3,376,630) (lot 13, est. £1.5 – 2m). Celebrating the artist’s native city of Haarlem, this work established Ruisdael as the leading landscape painter of the Dutch Golden Age.

• One of the finest works by Jan van de Cappelle, A Calm Sea achieved £2,050,000($2,612,110) (lot 15, est. £1-1.5 million).

• One of Jan Brueghel the Elder’s earliest and most pioneering works, An extensive coastal landscape with fisherman landing and selling their catch, Jonah being cast overboard and offshore, 1595, achieved £1,990,000 ($2,535,658) (lot 11, est. £1.8 – 2.5m).

• Aert van der Neer’s Winter landscape with kolf players realised £1,210,000(1,541,782) (lot 38, est. £1-1.5m). The artist’s winter landscapes are by far his most prized and sought-after paintings

• A Winter landscape by Pieter Brueghel the Younger sold for £970,000 ($1,235,974) (lot 27, est. £700,000 – 900,000).

• A stunning depiction of Mary Magdalene reading by Ambrosius Benson rose to £730,000 ($930,166) (lot 1, est. £200,000-300,000)

Further highlights from the sale

• A beautiful and intensely personal triptych attributed to the Master of Saint Veronica, circa 1410 realised £1,570,000 ($2,000,494) (lot 6, est. £1.2-1.8m).

• The arresting and refined depiction of Christ by a close associate of Leonardo da Vinci in around 1510, soared to £874,000 ($1,113,651) (lot 4, est. £250,000 – 350,000).

OLD MASTERS DAY, 6 December
The Old Master Day sale closed with a total of £4,353,625 ($5,537,811/ €4,897,814) with a sell-through rate of 72%. There were a number of exceptional prices achieved with over half the lots in the sale achieving above their high estimates. The top lot of the sale, The Gathering Of Manna; Abraham And Melchizedek by Jacopo Bassano and his son, Francesco Bassano the Younger, fetched over five times its low estimate to achieve £430,000 ($546,960 / €483,749) (est. £80,000 – 120,000). Further highlights included a pastoral scene by Thomas Gainsborough which achieved £250,0000 ($318,000/ €281,249) - over four times its low estimate (£60,000 – 80,000); Saint John The Baptist Preaching In A Rocky Landscape by a follower of Raphael which soared to £181,250 ($230,550 / €203,906) over an estimate of 25,000 – 40,000 and John Martin’s Edwin and Angelina, or The Hermit, which more than doubled its estimate to realise £150,000 ($190,800 / €168,750) (est. £60,000 – 80,000).

OLD MASTER SCULPTURE & WORKS OF ART, 4 December
The Old Master Sculpture & Works of Art sale brought a total of £2,493,500 ($3,187,192 / €2,799,958), led by a bronze two-figure group of Apollo and Daphne, attributed to Ferdinando Tacca, which sold for £322,000 ($411,580 / €361,575) (est. £200,000-300,000). The emergence of this work on the market presented collectors with a unique opportunity to acquire a previously unrecorded version of one of Tacca’s rarest models. A serene marble Bust of a Muse carved by Cincinnato Baruzzi, the celebrated student of Antonio Canova, soared over estimate to bring £310,000 ($396,242 / €348,100) (est. £80,000-120,000). Cupid with a Swan, Allegory of the Genius of Poetry by Scottish Neoclassical sculptor Lawrence Macdonald doubled its estimate to sell for £175,000 ($223,685 / €196,508) (est. £70,000-100,000).

THE POHL-STRÖHER COLLECTION OF PORTRAIT MINIATURES, PART I, 6 December
The Pohl-Ströher Collection of Portrait Miniatures brought an outstanding total of £1,730,188 ($2,200,799 / €1,945,595), double the pre-sale low estimate and with 84% of the lots sold (est. £883,700-1,302,300). Drawn from one of the most important private collections of miniatures ever assembled, the miniatures were owned by the scientist, geologist and businesswoman Dr Erika Pohl-Ströher (1919-2016), who was the granddaughter of Franz and Marie Ströher, founder of hair care and cosmetics giant Wella AG. The top lot of the sale was a Portrait of a lady holding a flute, circa 1715, by Rosalba Carriera, which sold for £87,500 ($111,300 / €98,394), almost fifteen times above its pre-sale estimate (£6,000-8,000). A trio of miniatures, rare examples of the work of Edward Northgate, depicting John Harrison, Junior, his wife Mary Harrison, and the coat of arms of the Harrison family, made £81,250 ($103,350 / 91,366), against a pre-sale estimate of £30,000-50,000. A portrait of a North African, probably an Abyssinian, by Giovanna Garzoni, painted while the artist was working in Turin for the Duke of Savoy, sparked a flurry of bids, before reaching a final sale price of £52,500 ($66,780 / €59,036), many multiples of its estimate (£5,000-8,000). Miniatures by the revered master Nicholas Hilliard were highly sought after: his Portrait of a young gentleman, circa 1600 fetched £75,000 ($95,400 / €84,337) (est. £30,000-40,000), while a Portrait of a lady, traditionally identified as Queen Elizabeth I, circa 1590, sold for £50,000 ($63,600 / €56,225) (est. £25,000-35,000).

ANCIENT SCULPTURE & WORKS OF ART, 4 December
Tuesday’s Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art sale brought a remarkable £6,779,750 ($8,665,876 /€7,612,999), far surpassing the pre-sale estimate (£2,737,300 - 3,875,400) and achieving the highest total for the series since the sales were introduced in London in May 2016. 55 of the 58 lots were sold, making for an exceptional sell-through rate of 95% - with 76% of lots selling above the pre-sale high estimate. Sotheby’s leads the market for ancient marbles, holding nine of the top ten prices at auction, and the top three highest prices ever achieved.

The sale was led by a rare funerary statue of a professional poet from the early years of the Roman Empire. Dating to the 2nd half of the 1st Century B.C., the life-size portrait commanded more than two times its high estimate, achieving £4,174,500 ($5,335,846 /€4,687,557 ) (est. £1,500,000-2,000,000). Discovered before World War Two, the sculpture has passed through the hands of prestigious art dealers in Italy and in the United States, before entering the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, in 1936. It had been on view at the Antikenmuseum in Basel for the past ten years.