NEW YORK—Sometimes the hype is bigger than the market. While “The Scholar,” by Osman Hamdy Bey (1842–1910), was the leading Orientalist masterpiece—estimated at $5 million to $8 million—in a recent Sotheby’s auction, the work didn’t sell.
Sotheby’s created a stand-alone, masterpiece Orientalist sale to coincide with the three-day series of auctions titled “Turkish and Islamic Week: Classic to Contemporary.” The sales concluded on April 26 in London, with 23 of the 33 works in the auction sold.
Works by Osman Hamdy Bey (1842–1910) and Ivan Aivazovsky (1817–1900) were the headliners of the sale. They were considered extremely rare and important masterpieces.
Aivazovsky’s work “View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus,” sold for $5.2 million, well over its pre-sale estimate of $2 million to $3 million.
