FEATURES ARCHIVE

Tim Schmelcher, Director of the Prints department in London, shares his insight into the hugely successful July sale of Old Master Prints.

The sale of Old Master Prints on 7 July was a tremendous success, highlighted by a world record for any print by Albrecht Dürer at auction, for a magnificent impression of Adam and Eve, which sold for £409,000 to a private Latin American collector (estimate: £250,000-350,000). In total, the sale realised £2.9 million.

It was in early spring that we realised that we had already secured an unusual number of fine and important prints for sale. We decided then to move the sale from the established date in December to July, to coincide with the Drawings Week in London. The anticipation grew as soon as the doors at King Street opened for viewing. At times, our pre-sale view felt like an ‘Old Master Prints Convention’, with scholars, connoisseurs and amateurs carefully examining and – sometimes loudly, sometimes discreetly – discussing the merits of each impression.

Some of the key lots of the sale far exceeded expectations, amongst which are Dürer’s rare first engraving, The Ravisher, which doubled its pre-sale estimate, and Schongauer’s little Virgin and Child on a Grassy Bench, which quadrupled its low estimate. This was all the more remarkable as the estimates for some of the finest prints were by no means cautious. The market clearly endorsed our confident pricing of the sale: there was strong demand from established buyers as well as new collectors, resulting in competitive bidding almost throughout the sale.

Over the last five years, Christie's Prints Department in London has been able to secure the best collections of Old Master Prints and to achieve many of the highest results in the field. With a market share of 76% market share over our closest competitor, Christie's London is undoubtedly the worldwide leading market place for Old Master Prints today.