Sotheby's London, 22nd November 2011, announces that the Old Master and British Paintings Evening and Day Sales on 7th and 8th December 2011 will offer a selection of important works of exceptional quality and rarity, many of which have remained in private collections for decades, including the masterpiece by Jan Steen Card Players in an Interior (est. 4.5-6 million*). The sales, which comprise 237 lots, are estimated to fetch a combined total in excess of 21 million.
Alex Bell, Sotheby’s Co-Chairman, Old Master Paintings, Worldwide, said: “We are extremely pleased to continue Sotheby’s eleventh successive year of leading in Old Master Paintings auction sales with a carefully curated offering which responds to the market demand for a wide variety of works of exceptional quality from a broad array of schools. The sale highlights demonstrate the mastery of some of the most important artists in the field,including Jan Steen, Jacob van Ruisdael, Lucas Cranach, Anthony Van Dyck, Johann Zoffany and Joseph Wright of Derby.”
Jan Havicksz Steen’s oil on panel Figures Seated in an Interior with a Man and a Woman Seated at a Table Playing Cards (circa 1660) is a superb example of the artist’s painting, one of his best preserved works and a masterpiece of seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting. Estimated at 4.5-6 million, the work’s combination of both technical and intellectual mastery, demonstrated in the unusually high degree of finish in the details as well the background, make it one of the foremost examples of Steen’s work and of seventeenth-century Dutch genre to come to the market in recent years. Steen’s choice of subject - a soldier being disarmed by a woman’s charms - is an exploration of one of the most popular themes of the mid-seventeenth century, with its roots in the biblical story of Samson and Delilah. The artist’s interpretation is characterised by his unusually complex and humorous exploration of human nature and the interaction between the sexes.
Dune Landscape with a Farmer on a Sandy Road, and a Distant View of Haarlem (estimated 1.2–1.6 million) is unquestionably one of Jacob van Ruisdael’s greatest works. Executed in 1647, it bears the characteristics of all Ruisdael’s finest works - a complete mastery of the representation of nature, weather, the time of day, and is highly observant of the effects of nature. The painting’s evocation of mood and spirit of place on the rutted, sandy road on the outskirts of Haarlem, is an astonishing achievement from an artist still under twenty years old at the time.
A Guardroom Scene with Tric-Trac Players in the Foreground by David Teniers the Younger is estimated at 400,000–600,000. This beautifully preserved oil-oncopper is an exceptional example of Teniers’ work from the 1640s, at the height of his artistic powers, and is among the finest achievements of his Antwerp period. Teniers was a sharp observer of human nature, and in this work he emphasises the serious nature of the competition between the players, while exploring his interest in still life within the interior setting. In 1819 the painting was displayed in the Duchess Street gallery of renowned tastemaker Thomas Hope. It is offered for sale at auction for the first time in almost 100 years.
The elegant oil on panel portrait Young Lady Three Quarter Length, in a Geen Velvet and Orange Dress and Pear-Embroidered Black Hat (est. 800,000-1,200,000) is attributed to Lucas Cranach the Younger and is thought to be a collaborative work between Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Cranach the Younger from the period around 1533. This portrait is characteristic of the style Cranach perfected during his years in Wittenberg studying with his father. The wonderfully insightful character study combines acute realism with courtly refinement. The portrait is very close stylistically to a beautiful female portrait by Lucas Cranach the Younger in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, whose companion portrait is dated 1543. Although the pose of the present sitter might suggest that the picture originally had a pendant, none has ever been connected and the direct outward glance of the sitter suggests that that it was equally likely to have been conceived as a single portrait in its own right.
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