Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of a young woman, half-length, holding a chain, oil on canvas, 33¾ x 26 in. (85.5 x 66 cm.) Estimate: £4,000,000-6,000,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.

LONDON.- Christie’s London announced a new, expanded, hybrid Classic Week, a marquee series of 12 auctions to take place throughout the month of July 2020. Comprising eight on line sales, including a creative collaboration between Old Masters and Post War Art, Classic Week will also feature four live auctions culminating with an innovative new Classic Art Evening Sale: Antiquity to 20th Century on 29 July.

The expanded Classic Week will celebrate craftsmanship and the story of creativity across time from antiquity to the 21st century, and across artistic media including Old Master and 19th Century Paintings, Drawings and Prints; Sculpture and Antiquities; Books and Manuscripts; and the full diversity of Decorative Arts.

Karl Hermanns, Global Managing Director, Classic Art Group comments, “Christie’s Classic Art business has seen great success in the new environment of the last two months, with live auctions converted to on-line only sales, creative new on-line theme sales, and last week in Paris we held the first live auctions by an international auction house since lockdown. Our on-line only New York Classic Week is live for bidding now. We are excited to announce London’s July marquee Classic Week in this new, expanded, hybrid format and featuring two innovative new sale concepts: a creative on-line collaboration between Old Masters and Post War Art and a new cross-category Classic Art Evening Sale: Antiquity to 20th Century”.

As one of the most exciting recent rediscoveries in Rubens’ portrait oeuvre, this powerful and enigmatic portrait was painted in the early part of what has come to be known as his Italian period, either in Italy or during his first trip to Spain, between circa 1603 and 1606.

The ruff worn by the young female sitter is Spanish in origin, alluding to a link with the artist’s time in Spain in 1603. While in the service of his patron - Vincenzo Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua - Rubens journeyed to Spain and correspondence suggests that he had been commissioned by the Duke to produce portraits of the ladies of the Spanish Court for his ‘Gallery of Beauties’ in Mantua. While it is not clear if Rubens fulfilled this commission or if this portrait was one of those commissioned paintings, it is certainly a possibility. What is evident is that this painting demonstrates the brilliant brushwork and physiological understanding of the artist, who was to become the most influential artist of the Baroque period.

The portrait is likely to have remained in Italy until the early 19th century, latterly in Venice. It then entered the collection of the Hanmer family in Britain during the mid-19th century, probably being acquired by Sir John Hanmer for his family seat at Bettisfield Park in Flintshire, North Wales.