Conclusion of a perfectly orchestrated media operation, Sotheby's sold a portrait attributed to Botticelli for $ 92.2 million, including costs.
Thursday around 10:40 am, New York time,
The portrait of the young man holding a medallion
thus changed hands under the hammer of the able Oliver Barker.
The suspense will be brief, five minutes at most, for an auction to a buyer by telephone from London.
His identity is still unknown.
Estimated at $ 80 million by the auction house, the painting was presumably sold at the reserve price, without much excitement.
But this sum was enough to make the Italian master the second most expensive painter of this period in the world.
He is close to Claude Monet, whose
Meules
, a painting from the mythical series of the father of impressionism, were sold for $ 110.7 million at Sotheby's in New York.
Far Ahead
The Massacre of the Innocents
by Rubens sold 49.6 million pounds (77 million euros) in 2002 in London.
But for the Renaissance, this portrait rises to second place, behind the
Salvator Mundi
upsets the art market that Christie's had sold, against all odds, at 450.3 million dollars (383 million euros) in 2017, despite an attribution to Leonardo da Vinci still as contested.
Read also: Sotheby's wants to create the event of the fall by presenting a portrait attributed to Botticelli
For this Botticelli, it was the same when the late American billionaire Sheldon Solow acquired it for 1.3 million dollars in 1982, at Christie's, in London.
But since then, this wooden panel, very similar to the one painted in 1474 and kept at the Uffizi in Florence, has been exhibited in many museums abroad.
Its deposit for nearly fifty years at the National Gallery in London and at the Met in New York has confirmed its authenticity.
Hence his strong estimate supported by Christopher Apostle, director of the antique paintings department at Sotheby's.
By publishing a 96-page catalog richly illustrated, with supporting scientific analyzes, he took all the necessary precautions, even if for a handful of great connoisseurs, the doubt remains.
It doesn't matter!
The market is once again showing that it wants beautiful icons with great signatures.
And this Botticelli, just like the
Salvator Mundi
presumed by Leonardo da Vinci, ticks all the boxes to please one of these new wealthy buyers from America, Asia or the Middle East.