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  • Posts Tagged ‘Francesco Guardi’

    A GUINNESS FAMILY GUARDI FOR £25 MILLION

    Wednesday, April 5th, 2017

    FRANCESCO GUARDI (Venice 1712–1793), The Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi. UPDATE: THIS MADE £26.2 MILLION

    A painting by Francesco Guardi handed down through generations of the Guinness family will lead Christie’s Classic Week Old Masters evening sale in London on July 6.  The Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi is being sold for only the second time since it was painted in the mid 1760’s.  It is expected to make around £25 million.

    It is one of a pair of Venetian views by Guardi, one looking north and the other south, first acquired in 1768, probably from the artist, by a young English grand tourist called Chaloner Arcedeckne. Both paintings stayed in his family until 1891 when they were sold privately for £3,850 to Edward Cecil Guinness, the chief executive and then chairman of the brewing company.  He was the first Earl of Iveagh.  The two Guardi’s were kept by the Guinness’s and hung at Pyrford Court in Surrey.  They were separated in 2011 when Rialto Bridge from the Fondamenta del Carbon, was sold to an anonymous bidder at Sotheby’s for £26.7m–a record for a Venetian view painting. A temporary export bar failed to keep the work in the UK.

    Henry Pettifer, Head of Christie’s Old Master Paintings EMERI said: “This majestic view of Venice is one of the great masterpieces of eighteenth-century view painting. Painted in the mid-1760s, at the height of the artist’s career, this is a monumental tour de force displaying the full range of Guardi’s technical virtuosity and his unique ability to capture the atmosphere and sensuous experience of being in Venice. After the record-breaking Old Master sales at Christie’s in 2016, with the Rubens Lot and his Daughters and the pair of Rembrandt portraits sold by private treaty, we are confident this great Guardi will arouse enormous interest from global collectors of masterpieces, from Old Masters to Contemporary, this July.”

    The Rialto Bridge with the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi will be shown at Classic Week in New York from April 22-26 before returning to Venice for the first time for an exhibition at the Aman Hotel (May 8-15) to coincide with the Venice Biennale. It will then travel to Hong Kong for exhibition from May 26-29 before returning to London.

    HIGHEST PRICE FOR AN OLD MASTER IN FRANCE FOR TWO DECADES

    Tuesday, March 7th, 2017

    Francesco Guardi (1712-1793) – Piazza San Marco with the Basilica and the Campanile

    A magnificent view of the Piazza San Marco, with the basilica and the campanile by Francesco Guardi sold for 6.7 million at Christie’s in Paris today.  This was the highest price achieved for an Old Master painting sold at auction in France over the past two decades.  The Guardi was the top lot in the sale in the Boniface de Castellane and Anna Gould  “A Way of Life” sale which achieved 14.2 million.  Christie’s said that this exceptional result reflected the relevant choices Boni had made when furbishing his legendary Palais Rose with the most exquisite works of art.  There were bidders from 19 countries across five continents.

    The Palais Rose’s famous Boulle furniture achieved strong prices, as illustrated by the Louis XVI pair of meubles-à-hauteur-d’appui by Etienne Levasseur and Adam Weisweiler which sold for 818,500 and the Louis XIV console attributed to André-Charles Boulle sold for 506,500. Important decorative art from the period also performed very well, as shown by the Sèvres porcelain “vases” which realised 206,500 against a presale estimate of 80,000-120,000. Art Déco works by Cartier where among the highlights of the sale.  The Jardin Japonais’ desk set made 1.1 million, a new record for an object by Cartier sold at auction.

    (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for January 17, 2017)