Anthony van Dyck, An Andalusian Horse (around 1621)
Old Masters Part I, Christie’s, London, 3 December
Estimate: £2m to £3m
Anthony van Dyck’s painting An Andalusian Horse is impressive in its own right, but research into the work since it was last sold in 2000 revealed the canvas also contains the artist’s only known surviving landscape in oil. When conservators removed a relining from the original canvas, they found a painting of a tree-covered hill sloping down to a lake where a dog is shown having a drink (pictured below). Scholars have pointed out similarities between the scene and the background of a 1620 painting by Van Dyck that is part of the Musée du Louvre collection. On the other side of the canvas, the equestrian painting was a preparation for Van Dyck’s famous portrait of Emperor Charles V (around 1620), now in the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence. The two-sided work—which can be displayed either way—once belonged to Thomas Gambier Parry, a British artist whose own significant art collection remains largely intact in the Courtauld Gallery in London. Unlike those works, An Andalusian Horse was passed to an heir after his death, and remained in the family until 2000.
Anthony van Dyck, An Andalusian Horse (verso, around 1621) Courtesy of Christie’s
Sandro Botticelli, The Virgin Mary with the Christ Child Enthroned (around 1470) Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Sandro Botticelli, The Virgin Mary with the Christ Child Enthroned (around 1470)
Old Master & 19th-century Paintings Evening Auction, Sotheby’s, London, 4 December
Estimate: £2m to £3m
A little-known painting of the Virgin Mary holding baby Christ by a young Sandro Botticelli will make its auction debut at Sotheby’s London after remaining in the same family for more than a century. The painting is also known as the Wantage Madonna after Harriet Loyd-Lindsay, Baroness Wantage, a renowned collector who bought the painting in 1904. The work has been passed down through the family since her death and has been displayed at the family’s homes in Berkshire, UK. The painting was largely overlooked, known only by black-and-white photographs and even often attributed to Botticelli’s workshop until 2022, when the family handed the painting over to Sotheby’s for research. Experts have backed Sotheby’s attribution to Botticelli, the auction house says, adding that the composition strongly resembles Botticelli’s The Madonna and Child with Six Saints, or the Sant’Ambrogio Altarpiece, now in the Uffizi in Florence.
Lucy Rie, footed bowl (around 1978) Courtesy of Phillips
Lucy Rie, footed bowl (around 1978)
Moved by Beauty: Works by
Lucie Rie from an Important Asian Collection, Phillips, New York, 11 December
Estimate: $60,000 to $80,000
Austrian-born British potter Lucy Rie (1902-95) developed a unique style in the 20th century when many of her contemporaries—nearly all of them men—were creating more embellished pieces. Rie’s refined, Modernist style was ahead of its time, and influenced future generations of ceramicists. A footed bowl up for sale at Phillips New York broke Rie’s auction record in 2016, selling for $212,500 against a $40,000-$60,000 estimate. This piece’s matte white glaze and concentric details are representative of the work for which Rie is best known.
General Idea, AIDS Stamps (1988) Courtesy of Bonhams
General Idea, AIDS Stamps (1988)
Deck the Walls: Prints & Multiples, Bonhams, New York, 7-17 December
Estimate: $600 to $800
Beginning in 1969, artists Jorge Zontal, A.A. Bronson and Felix Partz formed General Idea, collective that critiqued social issues like consumerism, mass media and restrictive gender roles. The three tackled in their work the ongoing Aids crisis. In their last project together, General Idea reconfigured pop artist Robert Indiana’s LOVE image to instead read “AIDS”, and reproduced it on T-shirts, posters and, as here, on stamps. The project helped raise awareness for Aids, according to Bonhams, and it is remembered as one of General Idea’s most powerful and subversive works. Zontal and Partz died of Aids-related complications in 1994.