Among the world’s leading global auction houses, Christie's, just held a much anticipated and keenly awaited sale in London. It consisted of some exquisite old master paintings, Conducted amidst high expectations, it witnessed one of the star works fetching over $3.12 million (2 million pounds; ($1 = 0.6410 British pounds) above its pre-auction estimate.
Pieter Brueghel II’s ‘The Battle between Carnival and Lent’ went to an anonymous buyer for almost 6.9 million pounds, Christie's said on its site. The sale price easily exceeded the pre-auction estimate set at 3.5-4.5 million pounds, In the process, it set the world record price for the famous artist at auction, according to Christie's.
Summing up the auction results, a detailed news report from Reuters mentioned that the second highest-priced painting on the Christie’s auction night was a work by Willem van de Velde II, curiously titled, ‘Dutch men-o'-war and other shipping in a calm’. It was grabbed for nearly 6 million pounds by a European private collector. This again was a new world record price for the legendary artist at auction.
Perhaps real star attraction of the auction was Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s ‘Portrait of Juan Lopez de Robredo’. However it was listed as unsold on the auctioneer's site, with 6.2-9.3 million pounds of an estimated sale tag. Nearly 24 million pounds in the total sale (for all the lots of nearly 26 million pounds) did not comprise a sale for the Goya painting and also a Nicolaes Maes work, which had an estimated price tag of 1.5-2.3 million pounds, just shy of its pre-sale estimate.
Much of the hype in the latest series of old master & British art auctions was primarily centered around a Velazquez original first valued at mere 300 pounds ($470). This portrait of an anonymous later went under the hammer and fetched an astronomical price of around 3 million pounds at Bonhams.
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