Time.news – “The Man of Sorrows”, by Sandro Botticelli, was sold for 45.4 million dollars at Sotheby’s, the second highest price for an Old Master in the past five years.
‘The man of pain’ is one of the few paintings by Botticelli in private hands and at auction in New York, two buyers battled to win it with constant bids.
Presented by Sotheby’s as “the absolute masterpiece of Botticelli’s last years”, reality, however, did not fully meet expectations as the work struggled to match the pre-sale estimate of 40 million dollars that Sotheby’s experts had estimated: the hammer price was in fact 39.3 million dollars (more than 35 million euros), which added up to 45.4 million dollars.
The auction took place almost exactly one year after the record-breaking sale of another Italian Renaissance masterpiece: in January 2021, a painting by di Botticelli entitled “Young man holding a medal” was sold for 92.2 million dollars, an auction record for the Italian painter.
#AuctionUpdate: Following an almost 7-minute bidding battle, Sandro Botticelli’s ‘The Man of Sorrows’ sells to applause for $45.4 million. #SothebysMasters pic.twitter.com/AySDEGZCci
— Sotheby’s (@Sothebys) January 27, 2022
“The man of sorrows” is a portrait of Jesus on a black background, with a crown of thorns on his head, surrounded by angels. His hands are tied with ropes and scarred. It was made when the painter was already over 50, around 1500, therefore one of his last works, and was last sold to the highest bidder in 1963.
“We believe that there are only about five paintings by Botticelli in private hands”, explained Christopher Apostle, head of the department at Sotheby’s Old Masters.
The Sotheby’s expert also wanted to underline the retrospective and emotional nature of the work, the result of its having been painted in the last years of the artist’s life.
“It’s a metaphysical painting of a mature person facing his own mortality, and that’s what makes it so moving: as someone gets older, they become more introspective, more metaphysical, more spiritual. And I think it shows very deeply in this picture. “
The painting has a particularity because, for the current auction, an underlying sketch of a virgin with a hidden child was discovered: “An enthusiastic discovery because it makes us understand how the artist worked”.
The well-preserved painting had remained in the hands of the same family of art collectors, residing between Great Britain and Italy, since the mid-19th century. before being sold to its current owners in 1963 at auction for £ 10,000.
Today’s auction at Sotheby’s was also noteworthy why for the first time an Egyptian limestone sculpture, “Figure of Man”, which is estimated to date back to between 2,350 and 2,990 BC, was included in the “Masters’ Week”.
#AuctionUpdate: An Egyptian limestone Figure of a Man, dating to the late 5th Dynasty, circa 2440-2355 B.C., achieves $9.9M after a heated 12-minute bidding battle. #SothebysMasters pic.twitter.com/NXkU7p7Yu2
— Sotheby’s (@Sothebys) January 27, 2022
The artifact, which had been attributed a value between 3 and 5 million dollars (2.7 to 4.5 million euros), together with ‘The man of pain’ was the other highlight of the day ; and after a bidding battle lasting nearly a quarter of an hour, the sculpture reached a hammer price of $ 8.4 million, which ultimately amounted to $ 9.9 million (€ 8.9 million) .
The figure was found by the famous American archaeologist George Andrew Reisner in the pyramids of Giza in 1913, after which the Egyptian government donated it to Harvard University’s Museum of Fine Arts in 1921.
Another of the protagonists of the day was the Flemish painter Pieter van Mol: his “Diogenes with his lamp in search of an honest man” was sold for 5.8 million dollars, almost double the value of the house. ‘auctions had estimated, a figure that broke the artist’s previous record, which was 420 thousand dollars.