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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 – 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 16^th and 17^th 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.”