At Galerie Moderne in Brussels, their sale of 13 January 2015, lot 140 was a pair of anonymous gouaches, seemingly designs for an interior of a grand house. Estimated at 100 to 150 Euro, they eventually sold for 1,400 Euro.
More surprising still was a 10 by 17cm drawing of a "study of heads", Italian school of the 16th century. Estimated at 300 to 400 Euro, they didn't look in any way remarkable to me (good enough, but nothing that stood out). It went for an impressive 7,500 Euro. Obviously someone (or rather at least two bidders) saw something there which I (or the auctioneer) wasn't aware of it, and now I can't help but wondering what. The style of a famous artist? One of the heads returned in a famous painting? I have no idea, so anyone who does know or has a reasonable guess is invited to comment!
At Kaminski, many paintings remained unsold or performed under the lowest estimate (e.g. a Florent Willems low estimate of $15,000 but sold for $9,000 instead), with a minority on estimate and only a few exceeding it (e.g. a Winter Scene by Halsall, top estimate $700 but sold for $1,700, and a Still Life attributed to Max Weber, estimated 800 to 1,200 but sold for $3,000). Nothing spectacularly exciting here though. While the painting I discussed, attributed to Wouwerman, did not reach my hopeful estimate, it still just exceeded the lowest estimate of $2,000 at $2,100, which wasn't bad for that sale.
No comments:
Post a Comment