By Carter B. Horsley
While of this season's auctions have been a bit smaller than in the past few seasons, they have had a good share of top quality works.
This Old Masters paintings auction at Sotheby's is highlighted by a quite dazzling painting by Gian Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804), a luscious still life by Abraham Mignon (1640-1679), and a gorgeous double portrait by Nicolas de Largillierre (1656-1745).
The Tiepolo, Lot 49, "Christ and the Temptress," shown above, is a 28 5/8-by-41 1/4-inch oil on canvas. The painted was executed probably 1752 two years after Giambattista Tiepolo, Gian's father, was called to Wurzburg to decorate the Kaiseraal of the Residenz of the newly installed Prince-Bishop Karl Philipp von Greiffenklau and was accompanied by his son acting as a principal assistant. "Gian Domenico produced some of his most evocative and impressive independent works, very often much more intimate in nature than the grandiloquently Baroque compositions of his father," the catalogue entry noted.
The main focus of this painting is the "majestic and luminous figure" of the adulteress at the center with Christ kneeling at her right. "In a submissive and humbled position," the catalogue entry maintained, Christ is teaching humility and foregiveness by example, Around this central, solid pyramid Tiepolo has arranged a number of powerfully dynamic and active figures, temple elders, guardsmen, pages.Tiepolo's brilliant, flickering brushwork, lively and full of pastosità, creates a scintillating and moving surface. The exoticism of the figures - bejeweled and turbaned - as well as the classical architecture betray the influence of the works of Veronese, which both Tiepolos had turned to for inspiration and whose legacy of the Grand Venetian tradition they embodied and continued."
The lot has an estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. It failed to sell.
Lot 31, "Portrait of Francois Pommyer (1703-1779) and Yves-Joseph-Charles Pommyer (1703-1777)," by Nicolas de Largilierre, oil on canvas, 29 1/2 by 36 1/4 inches, shown above, is quite magnificent double portrait of twins, one of a series of 8 portraits that the artist completed about 1710. The catalogue notes that the painting captures "the brilliant flourish of French society during the reign of Louis XIV and Louis XV." "As a portrait painter and chancellor of the Academy, Largillierre played a pivotal role in the transition of eighteenth century portraiture from the Baroque to the Rococco. His rendering of the figures in the present portrait, together with his masterful use of color, lends a sense of immediacy and intimacy to the portrait. Largillierre skillfully mixes the Baroque traditions of the allegorical and historical court portrait with the more realistic style of portraiture then coming into vogue," the catalogue entry continued.
The lot has an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000. It sold for $610,750 including the buyer's premium as do all results mentioned in this article.
Another portrait by de Largillierreis Lot 129, "Portrait of Seigneur de Landreville," an oil on canvas, 65 by 52 inches, is finely done and has an estimate of $250,000 to $350,000. It sold for $368,750.
Lot 97, "Tulips, Roses, Carnations, Morning Lilies, an Iris, a Sunflower and Other Flowers in a Glass Vase with Raspberries, an Orange, Berries, a Skull, an Hourglass and Butterflies on a Stone Pedestal," by Abraham Mignon (1640-1679), oil on canvas 38 5/8 by 30 3/4 inches, shown above and the catalogue's cover illustration, is a beautifully painted and superb example of floral still life painting that became immensely popular in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Mignon studied under Jan Davidsz. de Heem in Utrecht. The catalogue notes that in such works the artists combined flowers that bloom in different seasons to satisfy their compositional and aesthetic desires. The painting very beautiful, but has a rather ambitious estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. It failed to sell.
Lot 42, "Chinoiserie Figures Surrounding a Painting Depicting a Satyr Threatening Diana and Her Nymphs," by Jacques Vigoureux Duplessis (active 1700-1750), oil on canvas, 31 1/2 by 36 1/2 inches, shown above, is yet another work with a very long title, but in this case, a considerably more interesting, albeit not as beautiful work as Lot 97. It has an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000. It sold for $81,250. The circular painted "depicted" in the work is a firescreen, which were very popular, and a similar Duplessis painting is in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. This is a very delightful eclectic work of great charm.
Lot 47, "Allegory of Fidelity," by Jacopo Guarana, (1720-1808), oil on canvas, 25 1/4 by 41 inches, is even more charming and has a modest estimate of $15,000 to $20,000. It failed to sell.
Lot 50, "View of Piazza San Marco Looking East, With St. Mark's and the Campanile," by Michele Marieschi (1696-1743), oil on canvas, 21 3/4 by 32 4/3 inches, is a lovely, fine and typical Venetian scene, by an excellent contemporary of Giovanni Antonio Calane, called Canaletto (1697-1768). It has an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It sold for $1,023,250.
Lot 112 is a small atypical but nice Canaletto, "TheGrand Canal with San Geremia, Palazzo Labia and the Entrance to the Cannareggio, Venice," a 18 1/2-by-24 3/4-inch oil on canvas. It has an estimate of $1,000,000 to $1,500,000. It sold for $1,050,750.
Lot 79, "The Gathering of Manna by the Israelites," by Hendrick de Clerck (1570-1629), oil on panel, 34 by 34 inches, is one of best works in the auction, an octagonal painting with a fine composition by a late Flemish Mannerist that the catalogue indicates probably dates to about 1590 when he executed a painting for the Church of Notre-Dame de la Chapelle in Brussels. A pendant of this work, "Moses Striking the Rock," is in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Art. This lot has an estimate of $150,000 to $200,000. It sold for $346,750.
Lot 72, "Madonna and Child with Adorning Angels," by Ridolfo di Domenico Gigordi, called Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, (1483-1561), oil and tempera on panel, 35 inches in diameter, is very lovely and has an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000. It sold for $154,250.