Small matter of big bucks

IT is always intriguing to see how the market evaluates art. Now that connoisseur-ship has all but withered in the groves of academic art history, killed off by the rampant phylloxera of political correctness, it is only really the dealers and the auction houses who dare to make qualitative judg-ments.

And there is nothing like having to set a price or an estimate, or having to back your judgment with your own money, to focus the mind on why one work of art is better than another.

Valuing market rarities is the trickiest part of this business, not least when the price tags run to millions and the line-up of potential buyers would be hard pressed to fill a five-aside team.

Discussion last week focused on the relative merits of the three Old Master drawings by two of the most celebrated Italian Renaissance artists which turned up on the market over the past year. A casual spectator would be forgiven for thinking that such things come up the whole time.

When Michelangelo's study for the Risen Christ was offered at Christie's last July, it seemed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It fetched 8.1m, a record for any Old Master drawing sold at auction.

That opportunity repeated itself last Wednesday when another Michelangelo drawing, of a mourning woman, was offered for sale at Sotheby's.

Christie's, as if not to be outdone, offered a tiny silverpoint drawing by Leonardo da Vinci of a horse and rider. Which was the more valuable?

Despite its diminutive scale (less than 5in high), Horse and Rider was billed as arguably the most important drawing by the artist remaining in private hands. It is spirited and exquisite, but, some would say, slight.

Before Tuesday's auction, Christie's believed it would sell for around 3.5m.

In the event, four bidders fought for it and the drawing fetched exactly the same sum achieved by the feted Risen Christ.

Expectations for the Michelangelo, estimated at 6m-8m, changed instantly. Some pundits predicted 11m. The sale itself Record price: qualified as one of the tensest moments in auction history tense because it looked as though the drawing might not sell. Bidding opened at 3.6m, but the first real bid in the room came in at only 4.6m, and just two bids over the reserve price, Mourning Woman went to Luca Baroni of London dealers Colnaghi, for 5.9m. Many considered this the less important of the two Michelangelos; the Risen Christ was a preparatory drawing for a finished sculpture.

Mr Baroni thought differently. "Of the three drawings, this is the only one that knocks you out every time you see it."

The identity of the buyer of the little Leonardo remains a closely guarded secret. Perhaps it is Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, as one rumour suggests.

On other occasions this week, however, it has been demonstrated that in the art market, size can matter. Monday at Christie's, for instance, saw some of the most remarkable Renaissance paintings of a remarkable week. They were the finest works by the 16th century Bruges illuminator Simon Bening ever offered at auction, yet they only just sold (at 773,750).

Their problem? They were just too small. And here, tiny is no exaggeration - ravishing, jewel-like images less than 59mm high. St Veronica Displaying the Vernicle, illustrated above, is one of 22 full-page images painted for a miniature Book of Hours by Bening, considered by his contemporaries as the greatest master of the art in Europe.

Even so, this manuscript was deemed by most collectors to be too small to handle and, by museums, just too small to display.

In the picture sales proper, it is the rarities that invariably prove the best buys.

Sotheby's Thursday sale was a perfect case in point, with a glorious group of early Netherlandish paintings selling for relatively modest sums - they are too rare in the market to interest big-time collectors - while yet another routine Village Kermesse or feast by the heroically talentless but prolific Pieter Brueghel the Younger notched up a new auction high of 3.8m.

It is tempting to see these Brueghel family productions as commodities: there are so many around, and everyone can buy and sell them with the happy confidence of knowing what they are worth. Valuing - and attempting to resell - something like the beautiful Virgin and Child by the more obscure Master of the Magdalene Legend is infinitely more tricky, but who would not rather have it, even if it is derived from a Rogier van der Weyden? Here it cost just over 200,000.

If there is any constancy about the Old Master paintings market, it has to be the mantra - to paraphrase Mr Blair - condition, condition, condition. If ever a great or even very good painting comes to the market in near-pristine condition, the chances are that it will go through the roof.

So it was at both Christie's and Sotheby's. On Wednesday, a large and spectacular wooded landscape by the 17th century Dutchman Meindart Hobbema came up at Christie's, probably the finest ever seen by the artist at auction. It came to the block with a mighty presale estimate, and finally sold to London dealer Richard Green for considerably more, almost 6.5m, a new record price for the artist at auction. At Sotheby's the following day, a new record, 2.2m, was set for an impressive pair of 17th century formal portraits by Jacob Jordaens - not someone usually associated with seven-figure sums.

Why both were greeted so euphorically by the market has a great deal to do with their having remained in the same family collections for centuries (the Hobbema belonged to the Earls of Bute until 1994 when it was sold by private treaty). They possess the kind of texture and vigour of handling that makes one want to reach out and touch. The Jordaens had never been relined, a fate of so many canvases when the pigment begins to flake, and the only recourse is to reline it with another canvas steeped in glue that, with pressure and possibly heat, seeps through to secure the loose paint. It tends to flatten the surface of the paint so that it looks almost like a photograph.

The difference between a relined canvas and an original surface is a bit like the difference between eating a delicious meal and looking at it on the pages of a cookbook.

Copyright 2001
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