NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announces that Classic Week, a marquee series of seven live and online auctions that feature pieces from antiquity to the 20th century. Sales will be held from 8-23 April and include Old Master paintings and sculpture, European Art, Antiquities, Books and Manuscripts and two single-owner auctions, The Kagan Collection and The Elaine and Alexandre Rosenberg Collection of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books. The exhibition at Christie’s Rockefeller Center will be by appointment only starting 17 April.
Standout lots across the series of sales include a richly illuminated Parisian Book of Hours, circa 1440, by the Master of the Paris Bartholomeus Anglicus, a 1776 broadside of The Declaration of Independence, a newly discovered painting by Dosso Dossi which is one of the most important commissions of the Italian Renaissance, an influential work by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and the Ionides Scarab, an Important Greek Carnelian Scarab from the Archaic Period, circa 530 BC.
OVERVIEW OF SALES
European Art
21 April 2PM
Christie’s European Art sale offers a curated selection of works from one of the most diverse and revolutionary eras in the history of art. Spanning from the years following the French Revolution into the early 20th century’s Art Nouveau style, the category encompasses nearly 90,000 artists from the many movements of the era. From the landscapes of the Barbizon painters to the bustling cities of the Belle Époque, the sale also includes works from the Victorian, Orientalist, Realist, German and Academic schools, among others. All the elegance and transformation to modernity that the 19th Century embodies is captured in the paintings and sculptures presented in this sale. The sale features an en plein air work by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, one of earliest commissions by Jean-François Millet, and a portrait by Paul-César Helleu once owned by John Singer Sargent. Additional highlights include works by Léon Lhermitte, Jean-François Raffaëlli, Hughes Merle, Sir Alfred J. Munnings and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, among others.
Antiquities
21 April 10AM
The Antiquities sale will offer a strong selection of ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Near Eastern works of art from the 3rd millennium B.C. to the 5th century A.D. The sale proudly presents two rare to market objects include a stunning Greek Bronze Youth from the Classical Period, circa late 5th-4th Century B.C., and The Ionides Gem, an important Greek Carnelian scarab with a running youth from the Archaic Period circa 530 B.C.. As described by the gem scholar, John Boardman, the Ionides Gem “this is surely of the finest of all Archaic scarabs…" and "in all but size this is a monumental study.”
Christie's will offer an Egyptian red glass royal male head formerly in The Resandro Collection; a unique Roman pavonazzetto and giallo antico herm that had once formed part of the collection of the Baron Rochdale, Lingholm, Cumbria; and a selection of recently-rediscovered vases collected by Cornelius Vanderbilt II in the 1890s and previously displayed at The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island. Other lots will include a Mycenaean pottery amphoroid krater with octopuses; a large Roman marble mosaic adorned with desert animals in a landscape; and a group of Sumerian clay Cuneiform tablets from The Collection of William Tyssen-Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst of Hackney.
Old Masters
22 April 10AM
The Old Masters sale is highlighted by a group of recently rediscovered works led by an exceptional canvas by Dosso Dossi which is one of the most important commissions of the Italian Renaissance: the painting program for Alfonso d’ Este’s Camerino in the Castello Estense at Ferrara. Dosso Dossi’s The Trojans building the Temple to Venus at Eryx and making offerings at Anchises’ grave depicts events recounted in Virgil’s epic poem, The Aeneid, and corresponds to the right section of a painting now in the National Gallery of Art (estimate: $400,000-600,000). Other Italian discoveries include The Vision of Saint Anthony Abbot by Sebastiano Del Piombo, a rare masterpiece that is the prime version of this composition by one of the great artists of the High Renaissance who was a friend of Michelangelo; as well as an early Roman School circa 1275-1300 entitled Eight Scenes from the Life of Christ which is an incredibly rare survival for works of this period painted outside of Florence. Also newly discovered is Saint Francis embracing Christ on the cross by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo that is a ricordo of a work commissioned for the Capuchin convent in Seville in 1665. The painting is in fantastic condition and curiously for a ricordo, x-ray examination reveals numerous alterations to the composition, which offer glimpses into the artist’s working practice and are evidence that Murillo continued to change his mind as he rethought the composition of the finished painting.
Other top lots include The Resurrection by Lucas Cranach I, and a dramatic painting of Christ expelling the money lenders from the temple by Dirck van Baburen. A strong group of Baroque works feature artists such as Jusepe de Ribera, Pietro Paolini and Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, and paintings by notable women artists Artemisia Gentileschi and Clara Peeters are also included. Sculpture highlights include a relief of Cosimo de’Medici by Baccio Bandinelli and a marble pair of busts by Lorenzo Bartolini depicting his patron, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Elisa Bonaparte and her husband Felix.
The sale ends with a selection of paintings from The Kagan Collection, including a Thomas Lawrence portrait of the abolitionist Jean Babington; a sketch by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière; a Johan Christian Claussen Dahl and a Jacques Sablet. Sculpture from the collection includes a bust of Emperor Commodus attributed to Bartolomo Cavaceppi, and a self-portrait by Antonio D'Este.
Illuminated Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the Collection of Elaine and Alexandre Rosenberg
23 April 10AM
Christie’s will present one the most important collections of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books to have appeared at auction: the collection of Elaine and Alexandre P. Rosenberg, which includes 17 outstanding Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and over 200 Renaissance printed books. The auction will be held on 23 April during Christie’s Classic Week in New York. The highlight of the collection is a masterpiece of book painting: the best and most richly illuminated example of the work of the Master of the Paris Bartholomeus Anglicus, a Parisian Book of Hours, circa 1440, with 16 miniature paintings. The Collection is expected to achieve in excess of $8,000,000, and all proceeds of the sale will benefit designated museums for the support of their rare book departments. The illuminated manuscripts offered for sale represent the culmination of 15th- and 16th-century European manuscript painting. Each stands out for its jewel-like artworks, its sumptuous illumination or its understated elegance. Several were owned by some of the most important collectors of their time – from the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to Henry Yates Thompson and William Randolph Hearst. The printed books comprise the most extensive collection of incunabula offered for sale in decades: over 200 volumes printed in the 15th century, many in their original bindings, in addition to a dozen Books of Hours, mostly printed on vellum, of the early 16th century. Extremely rare and significant among the printed books is a complete first edition of the works of Plato.
Fine Printed and Manuscript Americana
8-22 April ONLINE
The Fine Printed and Manuscript Americana sale presents a selection of Americana texts that marks high points of the 18th to the 20th centuries. The sale is highlighted by a rare 1776 broadside printing of The Declaration of Independence, a copy with prestigious provenance that was previously owned by both Thomas Streeter and Philip Sang. Also featured is the first public printing of The U.S. Constitution in the 19 September 1787 issue of the Pennsylvania Packet, printed by Dunlap & Claypoole; and a newly-discovered, rare sammelband of 12 issues of Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard Almanac, notably including the famous first printing of his timeless essay “Way to Wealth” in the 1758 issue. Other highlights include a 1781 letter from George Washington to General Rochambeau with the body of the letter in the hand of Alexander Hamilton; a superb signed photograph of Abraham Lincoln, donated by the 16th President to raise funds for Union soldiers and later used as the basis for the Lincoln cent; letters from Nikola Tesla; and an original script from Orson Welles’ notorious 1938 radio-play broadcast of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.
Old Masters Part II
8-23 April ONLINE
Old Master Paintings Part II sale features important works spanning a broad spectrum of periods and schools in Western European art. With pieces ranging in estimate and many offered without reserve, the sale will feature museum-quality Renaissance and Baroque paintings by Marco di Paolo Veneziano, Michele Tosini, Abraham Brueghel and Guillaume Courtois as well as an intriguing oil sketch attributed to Sir Peter Paul Rubens. Dutch and Flemish painting from the 17th-century is further represented by a pair of works by Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot; landscapes by Marten Ryckaert and Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom; a rare painting attributed to Pieter Brueghel III and an artist in his studio by Gillis van Tilborgh. Highlights from the 18th century include a seldom seen, signed painting by the Mexican artist Juan Francisco de Aguilera and paintings by William Marlow and Pietro Antoniani. The sculpture section will include a group of Renaissance and Baroque marbles and bronzes collected over many decades by Elaine and Alexandre Rosenberg. The estate of J. Paul Doll, Jr. will include various paintings, sculptures and works of art, including pieces from the famed collection of Baron Cassel van Doorn. Institutional collections include property from The Bass Museum of Art and Grove City College.
The Kagan Collection
8-23 April ONLINE
Christie’s will present a selection of works spanning nearly two centuries from the exceptional Kagan Collection. Impassioned by Classical Antiquity, Jonathan Kagan was drawn to the Neoclassical art created by artists across Europe from circa 1740–1820 who reinterpreted subjects from Roman and Greek history and mythology according to contemporary political themes. Kagan’s collection began with ancient coins and grew to incorporate paintings, sculpture and drawings from the Neoclassical period. Highlights of the online sale include drawings and paintings by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, Heinrich Friedrich Füger, Salomon-Guillaume Counis, Thomas Fearnley, Edward Lear, Friedrich Rehberg and Pietro Benvenuti. A selection from the Kagan Collection will also be offered in a dedicated group that will conclude the Old Master Part I live sale on 22 April.
