Sotheby’s MASTER PAINTINGS EVENING SALE 25 January 2017: Orazio Gentilesch

Following the record-breaking sale of 

Orazio Gentileschi’s Danaë 

in January 2016, the Master Paintings Evening sale will be led by another striking painting by the artist:  

Head of a Woman (estimate $2/3 million), 

last seen in the landmark exhibition on Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2001. One of only two known panel paintings by the artist, Head of a Woman was executed during the first half of the 1630s, when Gentileschi was working at the court of King Charles I of England. Based on the inventory records and notes from 1637 / 1639, the picture was purchased from the artist by the King, suggesting that the King responded to the work personally, and had not directly commissioned it. Coming to the market for the first time in nearly three decades, the work is being sold in part to benefit the Department of European Painting and Sculpture at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

The sale also offers an outstanding group of Spanish paintings: from a large-scale religious scene by Francisco de Zurbarán, to a late work attributed to El Greco, to a detailed still life by Pedro de Camprobín y Passano. 

Leading the group is a newly-discovered painting attributed to Velázquez: Kitchen Still Life (estimate $1.5/2 million). According to renowned scholar William B. Jordan, the work is the only pure bodegón pantry painting of its kind by the artist. Qualities and aspects from this humble and intimate painting depicting kitchen utensils are replicated in other works by Velázquez, 

including ‘The Old Woman Frying Eggs’, in the National Gallery of Scotland. 


The Spanish section will also include a rare first edition of Francisco Goya’s first and most celebrated printed work Los Caprichos. [Madrid: Printed by Rafael Esteve for the artist, 1799.] (estimate $500/700,000). Consisting of 80 plates in the original binding, the book is generally considered the artist’s finest printed work, and remembered for its satirical presentation of society’s follies; many specific themes and allusions defy interpretation. 

The Master Paintings Evening and Day Sales feature five Florentine tondi from the Italian Renaissance. Leading the group is The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saint John the Baptist and an Angel ( estimate $600/800,000), a late work by Sandro Botticelli and workshop. Most likely painted in the last five years of his life, the work features Botticelli’s crisp drapery folds and sharp outlines – distinguishing characteristics of his late works. 

A similar work, without the angel.

Furthermore, the sale will offer a newly-discovered work by the celebrated Flemish painter Sir Peter Paul Rubens. Study of a Horse with a Rider (estimate $1/1.5 million) is a rare example of a large-scale animal study by the artist. Until recently the painting had been described as by a follower of Sir Anthony Van Dyck, however the authorship had been difficult to discern due to overpaint and background added later that dominated the original scene. With the removal of these later additions, the canvas has been revealed as a work of high quality, and a typical example of the spirited and rapidly painted oil sketches for which Rubens is celebrated. A similar composition and pose is evident in the foreground of Rubens’ Henry IV at the Siege of Amiens, at the Gothenburg Museum of Art. 

Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Fountain of Love ( estimate $1.5/2.5 million) is one of four allegorical portrayals of love that the artist executed in the 1780s. The present work is one of the artist’s most distinguished compositions of his mature career – versions of the celebrated composition hang in the Wallace Collection, London and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. The work, which combines a classical story with an atmosphere and dynamism, has enchanted audiences for centuries.