Pieter Breughel the Younger. Summer: figures eating during the summer harvest, 1600. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $5,250,000
It is Old Masters week in New York. This work by Pieter Breughel the Younger is a highlight of Sotheby’s Old Master Paintings auction on January 30. Entitled Summer: figures eating during the summer harvest it is signed and dated 1600. Sotheby’s say it is one of the most impeccably preserved examples of this subject to emerge in decades. It is estimated at $2.5-3.5 million.
UPDATE: Sotheby’s annual Old Masters Week sales achieved $71,768,126. Old Master Painting and Sculpture totaled $51,361,251 with works from the Dutch Golden Age performing particularly well. Multiple bidders entered into a prolonged battle for an important rediscovery by Gerrit van Honthorst, A merry group behind a balustrade with a violin and a lute player, eventually driving the price to $7,557,000, more than double the pre-sale estimate and achieving an artist record at auction. The Annunciation by El Greco sold for $5,877,000 after five bidders fought for the composition previously known to scholars only from photographs.