Sotheby's Important Old Master Paintings & Sculpture - New York, 27 January 2011
Sotheby’s 27 January 2011 auction of Important Old Master Paintings & Sculpture in New York will feature significant works by artists from across Europe. The sale will be on exhibition in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries beginning 22 January, alongside the full calendar of Old Masters Week auctions.
The morning session of Important Old Master Paintings is led by A Sacra Conversazione: The Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of Alexandria by the Renaissance master Titian (est. $15/20 million). The work is one of only a handful of multi-figured compositions by the 16th-century artist that remain in private hands, and is the most important to appear at auction since 1991. The painting was shown in public for the first time in more than 30 years at Sotheby’s New York this past October, and has since been on exhibition at Sotheby’s galleries in Paris, Amsterdam and London.
The afternoon session of Old Master Paintings and Sculpture is led by An Italian Marble Relief Portrait of Cosimo I de ‘Medici by Baccio Bandinelli, executed when the future Grand Duke of Florence was 17 years old and just prior to his rise to power in 1537 (est. $300/500,000). Another highlight of the afternoon is The Stowe Cistern: A Massive George I Silver Two-Handled Wine Cistern, Jacob Margas, London, 1714 (est. $1/2 million). Representing the height of conspicuous consumption in the late Baroque period, this imposing English cistern is one of only eight known to have survived from the reign of George I.
