RESULTS | Christie’s Classic Week London Overall Results

London – Christie’s announces results for Classic Week, a marquee series of ten online and live sales celebrating craftsmanship and the story of creativity across time, from antiquity to the 21st century, realising £42,227,750 / $56,396,126 / €46,409,732, and reflecting a very positive end of year in the Classic Art Group calendar.

Karl Hermanns, Global Managing Director, Classic Art Group comments, Karl Hermanns, Global Managing Director, Classic Art Group comments, ‘Christie’s Classic group of business finished on a high note in what has been a strong year given the extraordinary circumstances. We saw competitive bidding both for leading artists and for rare connoisseurial works, as well as for the curated taste of excellent private collections. Bidding was global, and the Classic sales have shifted just as much as modern markets to a balance of live and online-only sale formats, as well as dual-site streamed bidding as we held for the Old Master Evening sale which clearly achieved positive results.’

Karl continues, ‘This Classic Week achieved a very impressive total of £42,227,750 against a low estimate of  £32,876,900 across ten auctions. The Old Masters Evening sale outperformed the previous year in terms of percentage sold by lot and by value, as had July’s Old Masters sale. All this is encouraging for the Classic market as we head into 2021, and hopefully when travel restrictions ease our consignment-getting can ramp up to meet the clear demand from buyers.’

Selected results highlights include:

The Joe Setton Collection: Pre-Raphaelites to Last Romantics achieved a total of £5,635,000, selling 80% by lot and 86% by value, and with 71% of lots sold above their high estimate. The sale set ten new world records most notably a new world record for artist Marie Stillman and for a work by a female Pre-Raphaelite artist, The Enchanted Garden, which realised £874,500, and a world record for the artist John Byam Shaw, The Queen of Hearts achieved £790,500.

Italian Drawings from the Robert Landolt Collection realised a total of £1,597,625 with a sell through rate of 77% by lot and 89% by value.  The sale was led by a double-sided drawing by Taddeo Zuccaro showing Two studies of Diana with her hounds (recto) and A partially draped woman holding a vessel on her head (verso) by his friend and fellow artist Bartolomeo Passarotti which realised £350,000.  Early and rare drawings performed particularly strongly and exceptional prices were realised for a drawing from the workshop of Francesco Squarcione £106,250 and a double-sided drawing from the Sienese School, circa 1400, £68,750.  There were records for works on paper by Giorgio Gandini del Grano, Antonio d’Enrico, called Tanzio da Varallo, Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, Il Morazzone and Ciro Ferri.

The Valuable Books & Manuscripts sale totalled £2,854,750 / $3,825,365 / €3,151,644, and was led by Civitates orbis terrarium (1612-18), by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg, the first comprehensive atlas of town plans and is one of the great cartographical achievements of the 17^th century, achieving £275,000 / $368,500 / €303,600, (over three times its high estimate of £60,000 - 80,000). Oriental Scenery (1847), the influential series of aquatints depicting India by Thomas and William Daniell realised £187,500 / $251,250 / €207,000, outperforming the estimate of £70,000 - 100,000. A further highlight of the sale included Joanna Lumley O.B.E. presiding over the rostrum to auction a selection of one-of-a-kind works in aid of Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity, of which Joanna is a Patron. The seven lots achieved a total of £33,000 / $44,220 / €36,432, with proceeds of auction benefiting the charity, which provides specialist nurses and support to seriously ill children across the UK.

Christie’s online sale of Quentin Blake: 200 Drawings totalled £229,750 / $306,946 / €254,333, with proceeds of the auction benefiting House of Illustration, the UK’s only gallery and education space dedicated to illustration and graphics. The sale was 100% sold, and the top lot was Stop smearing yogurt on your brother (estimate: £800 – 1200), which achieved £8,125 / $10,855 / €8,994.

The Old Masters Evening Sale totalled £22,916,750 / $30,391,911 / €25,007,158, selling 97% by value and 86% by lot, and with interest from 20 countries across 3 continents.  There was lively bidding on several lots, including the top lot, a masterpiece and re-discovery of a monumental pronkstilleven by Jan Davidsz. de Heem, constituting one of the finest still lifes to come to market this generation. The Old Masters Evening Sale also achieved six world records, most notably Jan Davidsz. de Heem, (Utrecht 1606-1684 Antwerp), A banquet still life, price realised: £5,766,000 / $7,547,112 / €6,209,936 and Domenico Ghirlandaio, (Florence 1448/9 - 1494), Salvator Mundi, price realised: £2,182,500 / $2,907,090 / €2,392,020. 

The Antiquities auction totalled £4,337,125 / $5,837,770 / €4,792,523, achieving a sell-through rate of 75% by lot and 84% by value.  The top lot of the sale was a Roman Marble Terminal Figure of Dionysus, circa 2^nd Century A.D, which realised £862,500 / $1,160,925 / €953,062.

The Old Masters and Sculpture online sale offered a broad selection of works across all schools of European painting and sculpture, from the 12^th century to the mid-19^th century, and totalled £2,604,125.  Works consigned from the collection of Sir Roy Strong performed very well and overall exceeded their estimates including, Francesco Francia, (circa 1447-1517) and Giacomo Francia (1484 – 1557) Madonna and Child, which realised £75,000.   Further highlights included Dirck Dircksz. van Santvoort, (Amsterdam circa 1610 – 1680), Portrait of a girl, full-length, in a black dress, holding a glove and some buttercups, with a dog, realising  £137,500. The Nottingham alabaster relief of Christ on the Road to Calvary, realized £112,500, representing a very strong price for an alabaster of this type and more than triple its low estimate.

The Classic Week series of sales were the last to be held in London this year.