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  • Posts Tagged ‘El Greco’

    EL GRECO’S MESMERISING AND LOOTED PORTRAIT

    Monday, January 10th, 2022

    Looted by the Nazi’s, restituted to the heirs of a Viennese Jewish industrialist, El Greco’s mesmerising 1570 Portrait of a Gentleman made €1,433,393 at Christie’s Old Masters evening sale in London in December. It was one of three works from the collection of Julius and Camilla Priester in the sale. The Priesters escaped Vienna and eventually made it to Mexico City via Lisbon. Despite photographic evidence their efforts to retrieve the collection after the war failed. It was discovered that some appraisers who had worked for the Gestapo were now dealing privately in Nazi loot. In 2010 the London based Commission for Looted Art in Europe identified the El Greco, still in its original frame, after it was acquired by a London art dealer.  An unknown number of Nazi era looted works are still unaccounted for. 

    EL GRECO: AMBITION AT DEFIANCE AT THE ART INSTITUTE

    Monday, February 10th, 2020

    With its otherworldly elongated forms and instantly recognisable proto-modern style the art of El Greco continues to fascinate.  His View of Toledo from about 1598-99, normally at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is to travel to the Art Institute of Chicago for a major exhibition titled El Greco: Ambition and Defiance to run from March 7 to June 21. Born in Crete and trained as an icon painter Domenikos Theotokopoulos moved to Venice in 1567 and  later sought patronage within the papal circle. El Greco’s outspoken criticism of Michelangelo meant he received no commissions from the church during the six years he spent in Rome from 1570-1576. He moved to Toledo in 1577 and earned a major commission for an altarpiece now in the collection of the Art Institute.  After falling out with the powers that be at Toledo Cathedral he embarked on a career as a portraitist.  The Chicago show, organised jointly with the Reunion des musees nationaux, Grand Palais, Paris and The Louvre, will bring together over 55 paintings and sculptures from the output of this remarkable Old Master.

    El Greco – View of Toledo

    EL GRECO TOPS CHRISTIE’S OLD MASTERS AUCTION

    Friday, December 8th, 2017

    El Greco – Saint Francis and Brother Leo in Meditation

    El Greco’s Saint Francis and Brother Leo in Meditation was the top lot at Christie’s Old Masters evening sale in London on December 7.  From the Collection of Stanford Z. Rothschild, Jr. it sold for £6,871,250.  This is the second highest price for the artist at auction.

    The sale totalled £21,772,000.  There was a new world record for Bartholomäus Spranger with Mercury carrying Psyche to Mount Olympus, which  made £3,368,750.  The sale saw registered bidders from 30 countries, across five continents.

    Henry Pettifer, Head of Christie’s Old Master Paintings EMERI: “2017 is the second consecutive record year for Old Masters at Christie’s. With 78% of lots selling above estimate, tonight’s sale was 93% sold by value, the second highest sell-through rate by value for Old Masters, Christie’s London. The sale proved the healthy demand for 16th and 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings, demonstrated by the highly competitive bidding for the works by Spranger, Rembrandt, Ruisdael and Teniers, among others. We were pleased to see El Greco’s superb Saint Francis and Brother Leo in Meditation set the second highest price for the artist at auction, and for the new record for the Spranger which is one of the finest mannerist pictures to come to the market in recent memory.”

    EL GRECO, CLAUDE MONET, GEORGIA O’KEEFFE AT CHRISTIE’S

    Thursday, October 26th, 2017

    IF  you are a collector drawn to artists like El Greco, Claude Monet, Robert Delaunay, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Russian artists of the twentieth century it is probably just as well that your name is Rothschild.   Christie’s has announced that property from the collection of Stanford Z. Rothschild, Jr. will be offered across a series of sales in November and December, including the Impressionist and Modern, American Art and Old Masters sales.

    In his lifetime he amassed one of the largest, privately owned collections of Russian avant-garde art in the United States. Certain works in the collection are being sold by the Rothschild Art Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Stanford Z. Rothschild, Jr.  Overall, the collection includes 51 works and is expected to exceed $30 million.

    Conor Jordan, deputy chairman, Impressionist and Modern Art, commented: “Stanford Rothschild, Jr.’s forty-year journey in art collecting was distinguished by an ambitious range and a keen sense of quality.  Few collections range from the 17th to the 20th century; fewer still are as rich in prime examples from the artists represented. Whether it is the expressive force of El Greco’s ‘Saint Francis and Brother Leo in Meditation,’ or the scintillating atmosphere that marks the two fine Monets of the Normandy coast and Venice, Stan’s attention to the compelling experience a great work of art should offer is present everywhere.”

    EL GRECO (1541-1614) ST. FRANCIS AND BR. LEO IN MEDITATION ($5-7 MILLION)

    GEORGIA O’KEEFFE (1887-1986) APPLES – NO 1 ($300,000-500,000)

    ROBERT DELAUNAY (1885-1921) LA TOUR EIFFEL ($2.5-3.5 MILLION) CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2017

    Claude Monet (1840-1926) – Le Rio de la Salute painted in 1908 ($7-10 million) CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2017