Spanning six centuries of European art, the May Old Masters auction will include important examples from the 15th to the early 19th century. The earliest work in the sale is a panel from the upper register of an altarpiece, depicting the Marriage of the Virgin by the 14th-century Venetian artist, Lorenzo Veneziano. Other early Italian works include a fresco fragment of musical angels by an artist in the circle of Bernardino Luini. A highlight of the 18th-century Italian pictures in the sale is an oval formatted painting of the Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Gaetano Gandolfi, its surface rich with impasto and in original unlined condition.
Northern artists are represented by Gerrit Berckheyde’s view of Amsterdam, a sumptuous still life by Willem Kalf, and a wedding scene by an artist in the circle of Pieter Brueghel the Younger. In addition, there are various very fine examples of portraiture in this sale, such as one of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, by a German painter closely associated with the circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder; and a group of 18th-century English portraits.
From the landscapes of the Barbizon painters to the bustling cities of the Belle Époque, the sale includes paintings which capture all the elegance and transformation to modernity that the 19th century embodies. Highlights include a snowy landscape in exceptional condition by Gustave Courbet, a Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot from the 1840s, one of the most innovative decades of the artist’s career, and a large-scale painting by Eugene von Blaas not seen on the market since it was purchased in 1910, the year it was painted. Other highlights include paintings by Sir John Everett Millais, Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Henry Pether, Géza Vastagh and Johan Barthold Jongkind.
