Christie’s Old Masters evening sale on Tuesday in London saw Canaletto’s auction record smashed, after one of his Venice views sold for £31.9 million with fees ($43.7 million).
Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day (circa 1732) had an estimate of £20 million ($27.5 million). It was guaranteed by the house and backed by a third-party bid. Once owned by the UK’s first prime minister, Robert Walpole, a packed room watched on as five bidders went head-to-head beyond the £20 million mark. After a tense battle, it eventually sold to an anonymous phone bidder through Alice de Roquemaurel, Christie’s international director and head of private sales for post-war and contemporary art. The room erupted in wild applause when the gavel came down.
The Italian master’s previous record was £18.6 million with fees ($24.6 million) for Grand Canal from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto, which sold at Sotheby’s London in 2005.
Venice, the Return of the Bucintoro on Ascension Day measures 86 x 13 cm, making it larger than any other significant Canaletto work to hit the auction block over the last two decades. Christie’s made no secret of its high hopes for the painting; before the sale, the house’s King Street HQ was draped in a massive reproduction of the work.
“A couple of art advisors told me after the sale that it was so great to see a really important work soaring at auction – that why we have hundreds of people in the room for these sales, last night the room was packed to the rafters,” Andrew Fletcher, Christie’s global head of Old Masters, told ARTnews. “It gives everyone a real rush, and it gives the market a real injection of energy – it’s important for that to happen publicly.”
The painting has only been auctioned twice before. First in 1751 and then in 1993, when the same owner up until last night bought it for £7.5 million ($10.2 million) at Ader Tajan auctioneers in Paris. At the time, it was the most expensive Old Masters painting sold in France.
The collector who consigned the work in 1993 also sold Grand Canal from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto, the painting’s pendant, for what was Canaletto’s previous auction record in 2005.
Christie’s Old Masters evening sale and the Exceptional Sale, both last night, totaled a combined £60.8 million with fees ($83.6 million). Maja Markovic, Christie’s head of Old Masters evening sale, said in a statement: “This evening represents a landmark Christie’s London, achieving the highest sell-through rate by value in the history of our Old Masters sales (99 percent), and the strongest sell-through rate by lot since 2012 (87 percent).”
The £31.9 million for Canaletto’s Venice view marks the second-highest price for an Old Masters work sold at Christie’s London, surpassed only by Rubens’ Lot and His Daughters (circa 1613). It sold for £44.8 million with fees ($61.5 million) in 2016.
