Single-Owner Sale of Old Master and 19th Century Paintings

NEW YORK—An excellent private collection of old master and 19th century paintings will be up for auction in New York on Jan. 26, 2011. The Sotheby’s sale exclusively offers the collection of J.E. Safra, who is part of a prominent banking family.

The many different styles and genres should have broad appeal, with Dutch, Italian and French works, including significant works from Luca Carlevarijs, Giovanni Paolo Panini, and Jacopo Amigoni.

“This group of paintings was acquired by Mr. Safra for his personal collection between 1988 and 2001,” said George Wachter, co-chairman of Sotheby’s Old Master Paintings Department Worldwide in a press release.

“From a fabulous Venetian scene by Luca Carlevarijs, to architectural views by Hubert Robert and Giovanni Paolo Panini, to mythological masterpieces by Jacopo Amigoni and Jan Miel, the scale and scope of the works on offer are representative of the collection as a whole, and demonstrate why Mr. Safra is one of the most passionate collectors I have encountered in my long career,” explained Wachter in the release.

“He has an insatiable intellectual curiosity and is totally committed to the study and development of his collection, which the sale of these works will help him to support.”

Sale Highlight Descriptions From Sotheby’s

Luca Carlevarijs (1663–1730): A highlight of the sale is the masterpiece by the founder of Venetian view painting, Luca Carlevarijs’s “Piazzetta” (estimate: $2 million to $3 million). Unlike in Rome, there was no prior tradition of view painting in Venice prior to Carlevarijs in the 17th century. For the first time, an artist was depicting the daily life that took place in the city’s grand public spaces as a subject in its own right.

“Piazzetta, Venice” is a meticulous illustration of both the architecture and colorful figures of the city’s commercial and religious center. Carlevarijs painted this view on a number of other occasions, but offers a new interpretation here by observing the piazza from an unusual, off-center vantage point, further demonstrating his mastery of perspective.

A similar painting by Carlevarijs sold for $1,874,500 at Christie’s in January this year.

Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765): Some of Panini’s works are currently owned by the likes of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, Palazzo Quirinale in Rome, and The Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

This sale includes two “Capriccios of Classical Ruins” by Giovanni Paolo Panini, (estimate: $1 million to $1.5 million each). Though the canvases were originally conceived as pendants, or pairs, remarkably they have not always remained together. Mr. Safra reunited the works in the 1990s after a 20-year separation, purchasing both at different auctions.

Signed and dated 1739, the paintings were completed during a period of feverish activity for Panini that resulted in the production of some of his best works. In each canvas, most of the architectural elements are accurate depictions of real sites. However, Panini has taken the classical ruins out of context and arranged them across his canvases to create balanced and highly effective compositions.

While the first “Capriccio of Classical Ruins” depicts exclusively Roman sites, such as the Temple of Antonius and Faustina and the Colosseum, the other one features classical ruins drawn from further afield, including the Maison Carrée at Nîmes and the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli.

Jacopo Amigoni (1682–1752): Jacopo Amigoni’s “Venus and Adonis” is a magnificent and monumental canvas that represents one of the most exciting mythological works by the artist to appear on the market in recent years, (estimate: $1.5 million to $2.5 million). Originally formed as one of a pendant pair of paintings, its mate has been owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York since 1985, depicting Flora and Zephyr.

With a tender overall tone that focuses on the feelings of the two protagonists, the present work portrays the goddess Venus imploring Adonis not to leave her to go off on the hunting trip during which he would ultimately be killed.

Amigoni, also named Giacomo Amiconi, was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period. He began his career in Venice, according to the History of Art website (www.all-art.org), but traveled and was prolific throughout Europe, where his sumptuous portraits were much in demand among the English nobility and royalty.

Of the few decorative pieces he executed while in England, most are still on site in the houses for which they were commissioned. In fact, it is likely that both “Venus and Adonis” and its pendant pair were commissioned to decorate an as yet unidentified English country house.

Jan Miel (1599–1663): “Ceres, Bachhus and Venus” is a masterpiece of Jan Miel’s mature style (estimate: $800,000 to $1.2 million). The work was completed at a time when the artist was making a dramatic shift away from the genre of scenes that occupied his earlier years in Rome to the more classicized figurative work of his later career.

Although part of the famous collection of Count Moltke, the work had been unseen and largely ignored by critics until it appeared at a London auction in 1996. Dated 1645, its re-emergence has prompted a redating of some of Miel’s other important history paintings.

Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611–1693): “Zeeland Man-of-War in a Calm of a Jetty, a Rowing Boat in the Foreground” is a rare and unpublished penschilderingen by Willem van de Velde the Elder, a Dutch Baroque era painter, and one of the foremost sea painters of the mid-17th century (estimate: $400,000 to $600,000).

It ranks among his earliest-known works in the medium, which consists of pen and ink on a prepared white background. The graphic nature of penschilderingen allowed van de Velde to depict the boat, its rigging, and the carving of the figurehead and stern in meticulous detail.

The evening sale will have a public exhibition opening on Jan. 22 at the showrooms in New York.

Source: http://www.sothebys.com/