LONDON.- An incisive storyteller, Artemisia Gentileschi is known for her powerful depictions of women from history, and indeed her images of biblical heroines are among her most compelling creations. Throughout her career she was drawn to paint Mary Magdalen, whose life of sin and repentance offered rich narrative potential.
Never-before-seen at auction, this newly-identified 1620s work depicts the Magdalen in a rugged coastal setting that evokes the wilderness where she lived in solitude – referencing the saint’s sea voyage to the southern coast of France, where, according to legend, she sought refuge. With starkly contrasting areas of light and dark and showing a bold approach to the arrangement of its female subject, the painting blurs the boundaries between the sacred and the profane.
The auction also offers a recently rediscovered early work by her father, Orazio Gentileschi, The Holy Family with the young Saint John the Baptist (estimate: £300,000 – 400,000). It had remained unknown until its reappearance in 2023, when it was recognised as an important addition to the small body of the artist’s work on copper.
Sandro Botticelli, The Virgin and Child enthroned (estimate: £2,000,000 – 3,000,000)
Acquired by Lady Wantage in 1904, this Florentine Renaissance painting of the Virgin and Child by the young Botticelli has remained in the same family collection for over a century. Little studied and largely known only from black and white photographs, the painting was lost from view, its location often listed incorrectly, and largely overlooked in more recent monographs and exhibitions. The composition of the work bears strong similarities to Botticelli’s Sant’Ambrogio altarpiece of circa 1470, which is now in the Uffizi – considered not only the artist’s first large-scale painting but also one of his first altarpieces. Carried out on a smaller scale, this painting was likely intended for a patron seeking an intimate altarpiece for private devotion.
In the early 19th century, it was housed in the Convent of San Giuliano in Florence, and from there it went to a small chapel attached to a group of farmhouses in a village near Florence, where it was venerated at a convalescent home for the sick. It then passed into the family of Giovanni Magherini Graziani. The painting was sold by the celebrated Italian dealer, Elia Volpi, to Harriet Sarah Jones Loyd, Lady Wantage in May 1904 – and has been in her family since. Letters on the work’s acquisition have also been preserved in the family’s archive, shedding light on negotiations between Lady Wantage, her intermediary Sir Thomas Gibson Carmichael, and Volpi.
George Stubbs, The Spanish Pointer (estimate: £1,500,000 – 2,000,000)
This seminal painting is the earliest and one of the most recognisable of all Stubbs’ depictions of dogs. Painted circa 1766-68, at the height of the artist’s career, it dates to the decade when Stubbs produced many of the paintings for which he is most famous, including the National Gallery’s beloved Whistlejacket. The Spanish Pointer has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted and has only rarely appeared at auction.
It is one of two versions of the subject by the artist – virtually identical except for minor differences in the detail of the landscapes (the other is in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich, having passed into the collection of the Elector of Bavaria). This version was purchased from the artist, or perhaps commissioned, by the publisher, Thomas Bradford and served as the basis for the famous print, engraved by William Woollett, published in 1768.
Highly prized by sportsmen for their ability to locate and indicate the presence of game, particularly the partridge, pointers were first imported to England from the Continent at the beginning of the eighteenth-century. Stubbs faithfully captures the physiognomy of this now extinct ancestor of the breed which, through selective crossing with native types of dogs, would gradually evolve into the lighter, more broken coated pointer known today.
It first appeared at auction in London in 1802, when it sold for £11. Not seen on the market for over half a century, its last appearance at sale was at Sotheby’s in 1972.
Gustav Klimt and Ernst Klimt, Hanswurst Delivering an Impromptu Performance in Rothenburg (estimate: £300,000 – 500,000)
An iteration of Ernst Klimt’s, monumental decorative panel made for and adorning the grand staircase of the Burgtheater in Vienna, this easel version was started in 1892. In December of that year, Ernst – a talented and ambitious artist two years Gustav Klimt’s junior – died unexpectedly aged twenty-nine.
This large-scale and highly detailed painting was completed by his grief-stricken brother (the Klimt family had also lost their father in July).
During this time of emotional upheaval Gustav produced fewer works and this example is therefore a rare painting executed at the height of his successful Ringstrasse period. In the finished oil, some of the faces in the original ceiling composition have been replaced with new portraits of family members, including Klimt’s mother, sisters and his surviving brother Georg. The painting reveals Gustav’s commitment to his brother’s legacy, and his kindness in supporting his widowed sister-in-law and five- month-old niece. Signed Ernst Klimt by Gustav, it was exhibited under Ernst’s name in 1895 and sold to a private Viennese collector for 8400 guilders.
It last appeared at auction at Sotheby’s in London in November 1984, and has remained in the same private collection since.
Rosso Fiorentino, The Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist (estimate: £2,000,000 – 3,000,000)
A rediscovered masterpiece of Florentine Mannerism, this refined, vibrant, and characteristically eccentric Madonna and Child marks an important addition to the small corpus of surviving works by Rosso Fiorentino (1494–1540). Known only from black and white photographs until very recently, the picture was recognised by a key Florentine scholar and art historian, who in 2013 published it, though its whereabouts were still untraced. Its reemergence now, and dating to between 1514 and 1517, allows for a greater appreciation of the artist's production at a relatively early stage in his career.
Robert Home, Portrait of a Maratha Chief (estimate: £200,000 – 300,000)
This rare and powerful painting of a Maratha Chief – an Indian nobleman – is a particularly fine and sophisticated example of portraiture by British artists who travelled to India and gained access to officials and members of society. Recent research has connected this portrait to the work of Robert Home (1752–1834), one of the most successful British artists to make India his home from 1790 until his death in 1834. Relatively few of his portraits have survived into modern times, with most known examples held in institutional collections.
Pieter I Claeissens, A triptych: the Virgin of Sorrows and kneeling donor figures (estimate: £150,000 – 200,000)
Dated to around 1564, this triptych was only recently reunited, having spent much of the 20th century apart. Following a sale in 1924, the triptych was dismantled. The central panel last appeared on the market in the 1980s, when it was acquired by the present collectors. In 2015, they became aware of the wings reappearing at auction. After nearly a century of separation, the triptych has now been reunited and secured once again to the hand of one of the most important artistic figures in Bruges in the mid to late sixteenth century.
Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos (estimate: £300,000 – 500,000)
Goya’s Los Caprichos, published in 1799, stands as his graphic masterpiece, displaying astonishing pictorial and technical invention across 80 plates. Created in the context of reactionary Spain and the ‘terrors’ of Revolutionary France, Goya feared that these satirical depictions would lead to trouble with political and clerical powers. However, when Los Caprichos came to the attention of the Inquisition, Goya was saved by his admirer King Charles IV, who in 1803 demanded the remaining sets and the plates from Goya, which he claimed ‘he had expressly asked him to make’, providing a pension for Goya’s son in return. This complete first edition set is particularly fine and early, printing with atmospheric tones and dramatic chiaroscuro.
