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Friday, July 17, 2009

Painting Discovered In A Devon Cottage Sells For £1.3m WORLD RECORD PRICE At Bonhams

A painting by Giuseppe Zocchi (1711-1767), estimated to sell for £150,000-250,00 in Bonhams sale of Old Master Paintings on 8th July, made a world record price for the artist at £1.3m. Whom You Know just loves Bonhams, on both sides of the pond!


Titled `View of the Tiber looking towards the Castel Sant'Angelo, with Saint Peter's in the distance’, the painting was previously thought to have been painted by Locatelli, until a sketch by Zocchi exactly matching the painting came to light, revealing the true origins of the work.


It was acquired around 1949 by the present owner's parents. Formerly it hung at Inglewood House, Devon, and came to the current owner by descent.


Charles Lanning, Bonhams Regional Director in Devon says: “The painting turned up as the result of a valuation I did at a small cottage in the South Hams. The client knew it was a valuable picture but it was attributed to the wrong artist. The client had no idea what its auction value would be.”


Another outstanding result in the Old Master Sale was a painting by Jacob Van Oost, `Boy at a stone window’, which had been estimated at £50,000 but went for a staggering £624,000, again a world record price for this artist.


The sale achieved a total of £2,857,400.


Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale UK. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America and in August 2003, Goodmans, a leading Australian fine art and antiques auctioneer with salerooms in Sydney, joined the Bonhams Group of Companies. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, and a further seven throughout the UK. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Boston in the USA; and Switzerland, France, Monaco, Australia, Hong Kong and Dubai. Bonhams has a worldwide network of offices and regional representatives in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 57 specialist areas. For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments, go to www.bonhams.com. (1st January 2008)

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