Following what appeared to be a successful sale of Old Master paintings and drawings from the trove of A. Alfred Taubman at Sotheby’s New York on January 27, on the following day, the house held a somewhat disappointing evening auction dedicated to the category. Although the Master Paintings Evening sale offered 61 lots, only 31 lots managed to sell for a final tally of $53,473,500.Orazio Gentileschi’s Baroque masterpiece “Danaë” was the highest-selling lot of the evening when it landed a final price of $30,490,000 (est. $25–35 million)—topping the artist's previous world record set by the house in 1995 when "The Finding of Moses" sold for approximately $7.1 million. The composition, commissioned in 1621 by the nobleman Giovanni Antonio Sauli for his residence in Genoa, was acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It was the star lot of the sale, and according to Sotheby’s website, “one of the most important Italian Baroque paintings to come to market since World War II.” The final result accounted for 57 percent of the overall sale total.The Flemish Baroque oil “Saint Martin Healing the Possessed Man” by Jacob Jordaens from 1630 went for $4,730,000 (est. $4–6 million). The painting was completed during the same year when Jordaens finished an altarpiece of the same subject, which resides in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. “Saint Norbert Overcoming Tanchelm,” circa 1622–33, by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, exceeded its $1.2 million high estimate when it sold for $1,810,000. The oil sketch was painted to act as a model for a larger sculpture executed by Hans van Mildert. “The Madonna and Child” painted by Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, called Botticelli, and his studio, made a rare appearance here. Painted for the church of San Barnaba, the work had not been offered at auction since 1902, and has not appeared on the market since 1950. The painting nearly doubled its $700,000 high estimate when it fetched $1,330,000.Although leading lots fared well here, several offerings fell short of house expectations, perhaps due to changing buyer tastes in favor of modern and contemporary art. “An Interior View of the Henry VII Chapel, Westminster, Abbey,” painted by Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto, during the early 1750s, failed to find a buyer. It carried an estimate of $5 million to $8 million. Sir Anthony van Dyck’s undated oil “The Tribute Money,” one of few early religious works by the artist remaining in private hands, failed to sell (est. $2–3 million). The undated landscape “Rome, a View of the Church of Santi Marcellino E Pietro, from the Vigna Ciccolini, with the Palazzo Laterano, the Church of San Giovanni in Laterano, the Ospedale di san Giovanni and Ruins of the Claudian Aqueduct Beyond” (est. $1–2 million), by Gaspar van Wittel, called Vanvitelli, was also bought in.
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