AMSTERDAM.- Sotheby’s just held the Old Master Paintings sale at Sotheby’s Amsterdam. Highlight of the sale was the hitherto unrecorded set of four landscapes representing ‘The Four Seasons’, by the Flemish master Sebastaen Vrancx (1578-1647) selling for €1.2 million - a world auction record for the artist and the second highest price ever fetched by an Old Master Painting in the Netherlands (NB: the Dutch auction record was set in May 2007 at Sotheby’s Amsterdam when the ‘Card Players’ by Jan Lievens sold for €1.8 million).

The portrait of Maria Anna of Austria, Infanta of Spain, later Queen of Hungary, attributed to Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and Studio realised €384.250 and a rare view in Amsterdam from circa 1685 by Gerrit Adriaensz Berckheyde (1638-1698), with the Great Synagogue and the Portuguese Synagogue, exceeded expectations at €300.250. An exquisitely rendered Still-life with a tulip, anemones, lily of the valley, a caterpillar and a butterfly by Jacob Marrel (1613/4-1681) did strikingly well and fetched €174.250, almost nine times the estimate.

A remarkable portrait of the ‘Lady with the two beards’, identified as Margret Halseber of Basel, by Willem Key (1515/6-1568) generated huge interest selling for €102.250, tripling expectations. The sale of 86 lotnumbers totalled €3.2 million, equalling the high estimate.