Sotheby’s New York Highlights Sotheby’s New York Highlights Release January - March 2010 IMPORTANT AMERICANA Exhibition opens: 16 January 22-23 January 2010
by the artist (est. $200/300,000), and An Architectural Capriccio with a Pavilion and a Ruined Arcade on the Water’s Edge, a stunning and more familiar rendering of one of the artist’s many capricci (est. $250/350,000). A major early work by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, is a preparatory study, with some differences, for Tiepolo’s altarpiece painted in 1739 for the church of Augustinian priory in
Diessen, Germany, where it still hangs today (est. $140/180,000). An offering of 16th century Italian drawings comprises outstanding examples by certain artists, including Giovanni Antonio Sogliani, whose double-sided sheet of The Head of a Bearded Man and a Study for a Madonna and Child with Saints is related to a lost altarpiece and is one of the most impressive known drawings by the artist (est. $80/120,000).
OLD MASTER PAINTINGS AND WORKS OF ART Exhibition opens: 23 January 28 January 2010 A monumental masterpiece by the great 17th century Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius will be offered in Sotheby’s sale of
Important Old Master Paintings in New York on 28 January 2010. Goltzius’ paintings are extremely rare, and Jupiter and Antiope is the most important by the artist to appear at auction in more than 25 years (est. $8/12 million). Executed in 1612, the painting was formerly in the collection of Abraham Adelsberger (1863-1940), a German Jew who was one of the most successful toy manufacturers of the early 20th century. In the year following Adelsberger’s death, his son-in-law was forced to sell the painting to the Nazi leader Hermann Göring to ensure the safety of his family. The painting was recovered by the Allied forces in 1945 and sent to the Dutch Government. Over the course of the next 64 years, the painting was loaned to three institutions in the Netherlands, including the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, where it hung from 1985 until this year.
In March 2009, the painting was restituted to the heirs of its original owner, Abraham Adelsberger. From the Collection of Montgomery H.W. Ritchie, Two Studies of a Bearded Man (est. $5/7 million) was painted by the young Sir Anthony Van Dyck when he was still in Rubens’s studio and shows how fully he absorbed the lessons of his master, as well as how soon he had begun to assert his own style. Though making study heads from a live model was a common practice at the time, the combination of two figures on the same sheet is more rare. Also by Van Dyck is Portrait of Nicholas Rockox, completed in a small, almost miniature scale with a thick, robust application of paint (est. $1/1.5 million).
Also featured will be Francisco de Zurbarán’s Saint Dorothy, sold from the collection of Mrs. Wendell Cherry (est. $3/4 million). This beguiling full-length depiction of the virgin martyr Saint Dorothy is one of the most compelling works by the great Sevillian master left in private hands. Also from a notable consignor are three paintings from the London Residence of Mrs. Charles Wrightsman,
