Sotheby's Old Masters Week in New York Totals $112.5 Million
Sotheby’s 2011 Old Masters Week auctions in New York came to a close today with a grand total of $112,542,797, the second-highest ever total for an Old Masters Week at Sotheby’s New York. Yesterday’s sale of Important Old Master Paintings & Sculpture brought $90,626,878, just shy of the high estimate of $91.8 million. The sale was led by the Renaissance master Titian’s A Sacra Conversazione: The Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of Alexandria, which sold for $16.9 million to a European private collector and broke a 20-year record for the artist at auction. The sale set 16 artist records in total, highlighted by incredible results for important works by Claude-Joseph Vernet, Joachim Wtewael, Gerrit Dou and Pieter Breughel the Younger, among others.
Old Masters Week opened on Tuesday with the dedicated auction of Property from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp, which exceeded its high estimate in achieving $1,628,727 (est. $800,000/1.2 million). Many bidders competed in the room and by phone for drawings, furniture and decorations from Mr. Ryskamp’s private residences in New York City and Princeton, New Jersey, sold for the primary benefit of Princeton University. Yesterday’s morning sale of Old Master Drawings saw its cover lot, Perino del Vaga’s Jupiter and Juno, sell to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for $782,500, while the evening sale of Important Old Master & 19th Century Paintings from the Collection of Jacob Elie Safra set seven new artist records. The week closed with today’s sale of Old Master & 19th Century European Art that brought $3,357,504, within its estimate of $2.8/4.1 million.
