ZURICH.- The Old Masters and 19th Century Paintings auctions at
Koller Zurich on 29 March enjoyed a very successful sales rate, with over 100% sold by value. A portrait by Lucas Cranach and his workshop of Cranachs patron, Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, nearly tripled its presale estimate to sell for CHF 264,000. Arnold Böcklins powerfully dynamic Battle on the Bridge changed hands for CHF 240,000.
Further Old Master works included a rediscovered work by Jan Wellens de Cock that fetched CHF 168,000, and a work by Gerrit Dou that realised CHF 156,000. Among the 19th century paintings, a shimmering Venice landscape by Carl Morgenstern sold for CHF 72,000, and a humorous de- piction of a butterfly-chasing botanist by Carl Spitzweg fetched CHF 114,000.
The collection of Dutch filmmaker Jef Rademakers achieved very good results, such as the CHF 90,000 realised for Andreas Schelfhouts nocturnal skating scene.
Other categories during the auction week achieved similar stellar sell-through rates, and strong prices were realized in each auction. The Books & Manuscripts auction on 26 March featured a magnificently illustrated work on the flora and fauna of Surinam by Sybille Merian, which nearly doubled its presale estimate at CHF 132,000, and a lavishly illustrated botanical treatise by Johann Simon Kerner sold for six times its estimate at CHF 72,000.
A fine bronze of Napoleon on horseback by Jean Louis Ernest Meissonnier sold for CHF 180,000 in the Furniture auction on 28 March, and a pen-and-ink drawing by Hans Weiditz the Younger depicting pair of dice-playing vagabonds being chided by a passing peasant couple realised CHF 120,000 in the 29 March Old Master Drawings sale.