Botticelli painting fetches 76 million euros at auction in New York

Young Man Holding a Roundel

(

Young Man Holding

a Medallion), painted by Sandro Botticelli, was sold this Thursday for about 76 million euros ($ 92.1 million) in an auction held at the New York headquarters of Sotheby's, above of the value of 66 million (80 million dollars) that the experts of the company had awarded him.

The portrait, about 540 years old, is only one of three created by Botticelli that remain in private hands, and despite its more than five centuries of life, it is in very good condition.

The piece, sold in a week of auctions that Sotheby's dedicates to the great masters of art history, reached the exorbitant figure after just over four minutes of battle between several buyers who bid by telephone through representatives of the company present in the New York and London offices.

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From the starting price of 57.6 million euros ($ 70 million), it took less than 60 seconds to reach the 66 million euros of hammer price, which was offered by a telephone buyer from the London headquarters, a figure that it reached 76 million euros (92,184,000 dollars after adding fees and taxes).

Although Botticelli painted various members of the Medici family, the great Renaissance patrons of Florence, very few of his portraits survived the passage of time, and most of them are on display in museums.

Furthermore, it is only the fourth time this specimen has been sold in the last 200 years.

The New York director of the Sotheby's Grand Masters department, Christopher Apostle, told Efe that “the last time it was released on the market was in 1982. Before that it was in a private collection since the beginning of the 20th century, and before that in another since the end of the 18th century, we believe.

So you don't see it very often. "

The piece sold for about £ 810,000 in 1982 (about $ 1 million at current exchange rates / about € 824,000), but this time experts valued it before the auction at € 66 million ($ 80 million) at compare it with other masterpieces that have hit the market, such as those by Francis Bacon or Picasso.

“In my 30-year professional career, I have never had a Botticelli that comes close to the quality, the condition, the beauty and the importance of it,” Apostle noted.