LONDON.- Yesterday, Sotheby’s London sale of the Collection of the late Gustav Leonhardt saw Dutch and international collectors out in force, staking their claim on exquisite 17th- and 18th-century works of arts assembled by the legendary musician in his residence at the Bartolotti House in Amsterdam over a period of over 50 years. The sale which included furniture, silver, ceramics, sculpture, books and Old Masters, surpassed pre-sale expectations and achieved £1,949,244 (€2,370,674) (est. £1.1-1.6 million / 1.3- 1.9 million), with 92% of lots sold.

Following the sale, Mario Tavella, Deputy Chairman, Sotheby’s Europe and Head of House Sales and Single Owner Collections said: “Gustav Leonhardt was an extraordinarily fine connoisseur and the quality of his collection which effortlessly reconciled the taste and elegance of past eras with present-day life was reflected in the depth of the bidding and the results achieved today.”

Albertine Verlinde, Senior Director, Co-Chairman of Sotheby’s Amsterdam said: “Few collections evoke more vividly the authentic beauty of the Dutch 17th and 18th centuries. Gustav Leonhardt’s discerning eye and connoisseurship pervades this collection and it has been a huge honour to have been entrusted with this sale.”

Over 400 collectors registered, many of whom entered the action with a determined disregard for pre-sale estimates. The top lot of the sale was a Netherlandish terracotta relief of Diana the Huntress which sold for £170,500 (€207,362) (lot 429, est. £40,000-60,000 / €50,000-75,500). Made in the Workshop of Artus Quellinus in the mid-17th century, it is one of three terracotta versions of the Quellinus marble in the Amsterdam Town Hall. The other two versions are in the Rijksmuseum and in a private collection respectively.

The collection featured spectacular silver pieces, including a pair of Dutch silver double spice boxes, Isacq Busard, The Hague, 1751 which soared above estimate and sold for £100,900 (€122,715) (lot 499, est. £25,000-35,000 / €30,500-42.600).

Strong prices were also achieved by two rare wall maps of Amsterdam: The first, by Berckenrode, dated from 1630 and realised £92,500 (€112,499) (lot 610, est. £5,000 - 7,000 / €6,100-8,600); the second - the first printed map of the city – was designed by Cornelis Anthonisz, a distinguished painter and official topographical artist to the Holy Roman Emperor in 1625. Yesterday, it achieved £80,500 (€97,904) (lot 609, est. £5,000-7,000 / €6,100-8,600).

Gustav Leonhardt’s search for perfection was reflected in the classicism that ran through the group of European sculpture. This ensemble included a bronze depiction of Amphitrite made by the French sculptor Michel Anguier in the second half of the 17th century which more than double its low estimate and brought £76,900 (€93,526) (lot 423, est. £30,000-50,000 / €36,600-61,000). It has recently been revealed by Philippe Malgouyres of the Musée du Louvre, that Anguier's series of bronze gods was possibly inspired by an important manuscript collection of lute pieces assembled around 1652 by the amateur musician Anne de Chambré, who moved in the same circles as Anguier. The musical meaning may not have been known to Gustav Leonhardt, but must have revealed itself through the statuette’s composition.

Gustav Maria Leonhardt (30 May 1928 – 16 January 2012)
Gustav Leonhardt was a pioneer and a leading figure in the world of period instrument performance and Baroque music. A master harpsichordist, organist, scholar, conductor and teacher, he contributed to the rediscovery of the pre-Mozart repertory. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, he exercised a considerable influence on the international musical scene, performing around the world and making hundreds of recordings.

As Le Monde noted, “Gustav Leonhardt was to the harpsichord what Sviatoslav Richter had been to the piano: mysterious, self-effacing, introspective, uncompromising and prone to flashes of unexpected brilliance within an already brilliant performance. “

Gustav Leonhardt was born in ’s-Graveland, North Holland on 30 May 1928 and turned to the harpsichord at an early age. In 1947, Leonhardt entered the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland, where he studied organ and harpsichord with Eduard Müller. After three years, however, his parents, concerned with the few prospects of early music, sent him to Vienna to enrol on a conducting course with Hans Swarowsky.

In the early 1950s, he rapidly established his reputation as outstanding harpsichordist and Bach interpreter and became professor of the instrument at the Vienna Academy of Music, and the Amsterdam Conservatoire. He also taught at Harvard in 1969 and 1970.

Considered the finest Bach interpreter of his generation, he methodically recorded Bach’s keyboard music, revisiting works like the “Goldberg Variations”. In 1971 Gustav Leonhardt and Nikolaus Harnoncourt jointly undertook a project, completed in 1990, to record all J.S. Bach’s sacred cantatas, one of the great projects of recorded classical music and one that has and will continue to inspire early music performers of the future. With the Leonhardt Consort, founded in 1955, Leonhardt and his wife, the violinist Marie Amsler performed a broad selection of the Baroque chamber, orchestral and dramatic repertory, and helped revive works by Rameau, Lully, André Campra and other Baroque composers.

He also had a brief screen career in 1968, portraying Bach in Jean-Marie Straub’s “Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach”. Back in Amsterdam, Mr. Leonhardt was appointed organist of the Waalse Kerk and later the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), both of which still boast historic instruments.

Gustav Leonhardt continued to perform and teach, with his studio producing several important harpsichordists and early-music conductors, among them Christopher Hogwood, Ton Koopman, Bob van Asperen, Alan Curtis, Pierre Hantaï and Skip Sempé. Musicians who worked with him described the experience as “life changing.”

He gave his last public performance on 12 December 2011 at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris.

THE BARTOLOTTI HOUSE Herengracht 170, Amsterdam
The Herengracht is one of the most prominent canals in Amsterdam. It has been a prestigious address since the 17th century. The Bartolotti House (illustrated above) was built circa 1617-1621, after a design by Hendrick de Keyser. It was commissioned by Willem van den Heuvel, one of the richest merchants in Amsterdam who inherited an enormous fortune from his uncle Giovanni Battista Bartolotti and thereafter took his name, becoming Guillielmo Bartolotti. Today the house is one of the best surviving examples of early 17th century Dutch architecture. The cartouches incorporated in the facade reflect merchant’s virtues underpinning commercial success: Ingenio et assiduo labore (“through ingenuity and unremitting labour”) and Religione et probitate (“through religion and virtue”).

Gustav Leonhardt and his family lived in the Bartolotti House from 1974 to 2012, publishing his extensive research about the house and its residents in 1979.