Raffaello Sanzio, called Raphael
Auxiliary cartoon for the Head of a Young Apostle UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £29.7 MILLION
ONE of the greatest drawings by Raphael remaining in private hands is to be sold at Sotheby’s in London in December. Raphael’s Head of an Apostle c1519-20 is one of three Renaissance masterworks from the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth to feature at Sotheby’s sale of Old Master Paintings and Drawings in London on December 5.
The drawing is a study for one of the key figures in The Transfiguration which hangs in the Vatican Museum in Rome. When Raphael died, his body was laid out in state in his studio, with the Transfiguration hanging at his head. Only two other Raphael drawings of this calibre have appeared at auction in the last 50 years – each of which set an all-time record for an Old Master Drawing when they were sold. This one is estimated at £10-15 million.
The manuscripts to be sold were made for two of the greatest libraries of the 15th century and are flawlessly preserved, with dazzling royal and ducal provenances. The first, the Mystere de la Vengeance (estimated at £4-6 million) was acquired by the 6th Duke of Devonshire at the celebrated Roxburghe sale of 1812, when it sold for £493.10s. – then the highest price ever paid for any illuminated manuscript. The second illuminated manuscript, estimated at £3-5 million, is an account of the fictional and swashbuckling Deeds of Sir Gillion de Trazegnies in the Middle East and was once among the most treasured works in the library of great Renaissance patron of the arts François I, king of France, 1515-47.
The Duke of Devonshire said the sale will benefit the long term future of Chatsworth and its collections. (Click on any image to enlarge).
The Emperor Galba Enthroned
from the Mystere de la Vengeance
French Flanders (Hesdin), 1465 UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD.
The author’s discovery of the tomb of Sir Gillion and his two wives
from the Deeds of Sir Gillion de Trazegnies in the Middle East
Antwerp, 1464 UPDATE: THIS MADE £3.8 MILLION.