New auction record set for Bronzino during Sotheby's $100M Masters Week

Sotheby's Specialist and Auctioneer David Pollack with Bronzino's Portrait of a young man with a quill and a sheet of paper. Courtesy Sotheby's.

NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s hotly-anticipated marquee Old Master Paintings sales, held in New York this morning, together realized a total of $86.6 million, surpassing their combined $74.1 million pre-sale low estimate, and bringing the running total for Master Week sales thus far to $95m, with a further four sales still to come.

The morning opened with the white-glove sale of works from the unparalleled Fisch Davidson Collection - one of the most important collections of Baroque art ever to appear on the market. The sale was led by Sir Peter Paul Rubens’s 1609 masterpiece Salome presented with the head of Saint John the Baptist, which reached $26.9m - the third highest price for the artist at auction.

Lot 5. Baroque: Masterpieces from the Fisch Davidson Collection. Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen 1577 - 1640 Antwerp), Salome presented with the head of Saint John the Baptist, oil on oak panel; panel: 94 by 101.8 cm, framed: 125.1 by 137.2 cm. Lot sold: 26,926,000 USD (Estimate: 25,000,000 - 35,000,000 USD). Courtesy Sotheby's.

Provenance: Spanish Royal collection, Alcázar de Madrid, Galeria del Mediodia, recorded between 1666 and 1700 (see note);
Le Camus family (according to a red wax seal on the verso);
Possibly M. de Merval, and his sale, Paris, 9 May 1768 ("Hériodiade à qui des guerriers apportent la tête de St. Jean" [see Rooses 1888]);
Private collector, Montargis, France;
By whom sold, Fontainebleau, Drouot, 14 June 1987, no lot number, (as “Studio of Rubens”);
Where acquired by Charles Bailly;
By whom anonymously sold, New York, Sotheby’s, 30 January 1998, lot 137;
Where acquired by Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York, and Alfred Bader, Milwaukee;
From whom acquired by Steve Wynn, Las Vegas, 1998;
By whom sold with property holdings to MGM Grand, Las Vegas, 2000;
From whom acquired by the present collectors, 2000.

Literature: G. Cruzada Villaamil, Rubens, diplomático español, Madrid 1874, pp. 308-309;
M. Rooses, L’Oeuvre de P.P. Rubens, Antwerp 1888, vol. 2, pp. 8-9, cat. no. 240;
G. Vitaletti, Salome nelle leggenda e nell'arte, Rome 1908;
H. Daffner, Salome, ihre Gestalt in Geschichte und Kunst: Dichtung, bildende Kunst, Musik, Munich 1912, pp. 23, 29-30, 111;
A. Pigler, Barockthemen. Eine Auswahl von Verzeichnissen zur Iconographie des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Budapest 1956, vol. I, p. 474-475;
Y. Bottineau, "L'Alcazar de Madrid et l'inventaire de 1686: Aspects de la cour d'Espagne aux XVIIe siecle," Bulletin Hispanique, 1958, p. 311;
J.S. Held, Rubens, Selected Drawings, with an Introduction and a Critical Catalogue, London 1959, p. 107
L. Burchard and R. d’Hulst, Rubens Drawings, Brussels 1963, pp. 74-75, under cat. no. 42;
J. Müller-Hofstede, “Abraham Janssens,” in Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen (1964), especially pp. 293-295 (where he discusses the lost prototype by Rubens);
J.B. Knipping, Iconography of the Counter Reformation in the Netherlands: Heaven on Earth, Nieuwkoop 1974, vol. I, pp. 223-224;
P.P. Rubens; Paintings, Oil Sketches, Drawings, exhibition catalogue, Antwerp 1977, pp. 292-293, under cat. no. 128 (as lost);
A.M. Logan, “Rubens Exhibitions 1977-78,” in Master Drawings 16 (Winter 1978), p. 443, under cat. no. 36 (referring to the “lost” painting);
E. Hubala, “Triumph der Weibermacht, Bemerkungen zu einer Komposition von Rubens,” in Festschrift Herbert Siebenhuner, Würzburg 1978, pp. 143-164 (iconographic discussion of the “lost” Rubens painting with illustrations of many copies after it);
J.S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, Princeton 1980, vol. 1, p. 572, under cat. no. 414 (see note);
D. Bodart, Rubens, Milan 1985, p. 156;
J.S. Held, Rubens, Selected Drawings, with an Introduction and a Critical Catalogue, rev. ed., New York 1986, p. 94;
S.N. Orso, Philip IV and the Decoration of the Alcazar of Madrid, Princeton 1986, p. 147;
M. Jaffé, Rubens, Catalogo completo, Milan 1989, p. 170, cat. no. 115, reproduced (dated 1609-1610);
D. Bodart (ed.), Pietro Paolo Rubens (1577– 640), exhibition catalogue, Padua 1990, p. 72, under cat. no. 17;
P. Sutton and M. Wieseman, Old Master Paintings, New York 1999, pp. 80-85, no. 27;
Historians of Netherlandish Art Newsletter and Review of Books, vol. 16, no. 1, 1999, p. 10, reproduced fig. 7;
P. Sutton, in The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art: European and American Masters, L. Lumpkin (ed.), Las Vegas 1999, pp. 21-24, reproduced;
D. Jaffe and A. Bradley, Rubens: The Massacre of the Innocents, exhibition catalogue, London 2003, pp. 3, 13-14, reproduced fig. 24;
A.M. Logan and M. Plomp, Peter Paul Rubens: The Drawings, exhibition catalogue, New York 2005, pp. 121-122, under cat. no. 26, reproduced fig. 66;
D. Jaffé and E. McGrath, Rubens: A Master in the Making, exhibition catalogue, London 2005, p. 171, cat. no. 80, reproduced in color p. 173 and in detail p. 172 (as dated 1608-9);
D. Jaffé, Massacre of the Innocents, 2009, pp. 38, reproduced p. 40, fig. 15;
K. Bulckens, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. Part V (2), The Ministry of Christ, London & Turnhout 2017, pp. 5962, no. 5, reproduced fig. 30;
G.P. Streete, The Salome Project: Salome and Her Afterlives, Eugene 2018, pp. 42 and 59.

Exhibited: London, National Gallery, on loan, by 2003;
London, National Gallery, Rubens: A Master in the Making, 26 October 2005 – 15 January 2006, no. 80.

Newly rediscovered and restituted, Agnolo Bronzino’s extraordinary Portrait of a young man with a quill and a sheet of paper sold to a bidder in the room following a five-minute bidding battle for $10.7 million - doubling its $5 million high estimate, and setting a new world auction record for the artist. Proceeds of the sale will benefit Selfhelp Community Services, aiding holocaust survivors in North America, and The Lighthouse Guild – a Jewish healthcare organization.

Lot 106. Property Restituted to the Heirs of Ilse Hesselberger, sold to benefit New York charities. Agnolo di Cosimo, called Bronzino (Monticelli, near Florence 1503 - 1572 Florence), Portrait of a young man with a quill and a sheet of paper, possibly a self-portrait of the artist, inscribed on the reverse of the panel:  Picus de Mirandula / Phoenix Mundiinscribed on the sheet of paper:  Cogitat ut scribat, verum ut non scribat imago / Sponte sua scribit, sed neque sponte id agit / Ergo invita facit minimè nam scribere tantum / Destinat, ulterius, scribere, ne sit opus, oil on panel, 30½ by 21⅝ in.; 77.5 by 54.9 cm. Lot sold: 10,665,500 USD (Estimate: 3,000,000 - 5,000,000 USD). Courtesy Sotheby's.

Provenance: Sir William Temple, MP (1628-1699), Moor Park, Surrey;
Thence by descent to his granddaughter, Elizabeth Temple (neé Temple)(1686-1770), Moor Park, Surrey;
Thence by descent to her nephew, Basil Bacon (1725-1775), Moor Park, Surrey;
Thence by descent to his heir and illegitimate son by Mary Margaret Williams (née Deveil), Charles Bacon (né Williams) (1751-1820);
Thence by descent to his second son, Kenrick Bacon (1801-1888), Moor Park, Surrey;
By whom sold ("Pictures formerly collected by Sir William Temple, and brought from the Family Seat, in Surrey"), London, Christie's, 30 March 1824, lot 64, for £95.11 (as Bronzino, "A very fine head and capital Portrait of Pico di Mirandola");
There acquired by Henry Seymour, JP, MP (1776-1849), Knoyle House, Wiltshire;
Thence by descent to Henry Danby Seymour (1820-1877), MP, 39 Upper Grosvenor Street and 209 Piccadilly, London, and Knoyle House, Wiltshire;
Thence by inheritance to his brother, Alfred Seymour, JP, MP (1824-1888), 47 Eaton Square, London and Knoyle House, Wiltshire;
Thence by inheritance to his wife, Isabella Seymour (née Leighton) (1834-1911), 6 Upper Brooke Street, London and Knoyle House, Wiltshire;
Thence by inheritance to their daughter, Jane Margaret Seymour (1873-1943), by 1911;
By whose trustees sold, London, Christie's, 23 January 1920, lot 78, for £157 (as Bronzino, "Portrait of Pico de Mirandola");
Where acquired by Hugh Blaker for £157 (according to Christie's ledger in the Frick);
Dr August Mayer, Schleissheim, by 1927;
From whom acquired by Julius Böhler, Munich, 4 July 1927, for M 5.000 (as Francesco Salviati);
From whom acquired by Frau Kommerzienrat Ilse Hesselberger (née Wertheim) (1888-1941), Munich, 5 October 1927, for M 14.000 (as Francesco Salviati);
From whom acquired by [Ludwig] Bretschneider, Munich, as a consequence of persecution, 1937/1938;
With Kunsthandlung Maria Gillhausen, Munich;
With Kunsthandlung Karl Seuffer, Munich;
From whom acquired by Reichskanzlei through Frau. Professor Gerdy Troost (1904-2003), 28 January 1941, for RM 55,000;
Führermuseum, Linz (inv. no. 1400, as Jacopino del Conte);
Kremsmünster Depot (inv. no. 1468);
Transferred to the Salt Mines at Alt Ausee (inv. no. 2795);
Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point (inv. no. 4058, in a blue and gold Renaissance style frame);
Transferred to the office of the Ministerpräsident, Wiesbaden, 10 August 1951, and thereafter the Deutsche Parlamentarische Gesellschaft;
Restituted to the estate of Gertrude (‘Trudy’) Sommer (daughter of Ilse Hesselberger), New York, 2021. 

“Today’s white-glove result for the Fisch Davidson collection was a tribute both to the drama and splendor of these Baroque masterpieces, and to the combination of passion and meticulous dedication with which the collection was put together over the decades. I always believed these works would inspire the next generation of Old Master collectors all over the world, and indeed they did.” --George Wachter, Sotheby’s Chairman and Co-Worldwide Head of Old Master Paintings

“This Masters Week has been one of the strongest ever staged at Sotheby’s, from the record numbers pouring through our doors to peruse the week’s exhibitions, to the spirited bidding seen in the saleroom today. But not so surprising, perhaps, when rediscovered masterpieces by the likes of Titian, Bronzino and Van Dyck followed works from two exceptional collections across the auction block, in the space of just three hours. While there were many significant prices today, the most notable was for Agnolo Bronzino’s long misattributed early portrait, which achieved a new record for the artist – a further indication of the enduring strength of the market for Old Masters of the highest quality.” --Christopher Apostle, Sotheby’s Head of Old Master Paintings in New York

‘It was a privilege to witness the record-breaking sale of this extraordinary work at Sotheby’s today, knowing that the proceeds will benefit Selfhelp Community Services and The Lighthouse Guild. This work now enters a new chapter of its life, and we are so pleased that through today’s sale Ilse Hesselberger’s name has rightfully been written back into its fascinating and long history.”--Raymond V.J. Schrag, President of Selfhelp Community Services.