Mrs Luther on the block

Myth and history lend resonance to the sales of Old Masters

POOR Aristotle. Or is it three cheers for Phyllis, who claims her place in the pantheon of infamous women on top? Like all the best stories, the tale of Phyllis and Aristotle has been subjected to endless interpretation. As first told by a 13th century Norman poet, the philosopher, tutor and counsellor to Alexander the Great sought to separate the young monarch from his paramour - the lovely Phyllis - who was absorbing his time and energy.

Reluctantly, Alexander agreed to a separation; Phyllis, however, had other ideas.

Her revenge was to slip into the garden beside Aristotle's study, barefooted, loose-haired and with diaphanous gown unbelted, to sing softly and dance. The old greybeard didn't stand a chance, and before long was imploring her favours. She agreed to grant these only if he indulged her whim and let her ride around the garden on his back.

Caught in this ridiculous act by Alexander, the humbled sage rallied by saying that if he, a wise and aged philosopher, was unable to resist the power of Love, then a hot-blooded youth like Alexander must be immeasurably more cautious. It did not take long for the Church to turn the tale into a moralising exemplum in which Aristotle is cast as a victim not of Love or Nature, but of the deceit and malice of a woman.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, whose sparkling and recently rediscovered 1530 panel painting of the story is surely the highlight of this week's Old Master paintings sales in London, appears to have had a penchant for tales of women's power over men. Unlike his contemporaries, Cranach chose not to depict his Phyllis naked or barely dressed, bridle and whip in hand. His is an infinitely more decorous and courtly affair, the protagonists elaborately bedecked in contemporary finery and set in a jewellike landscape. Bawdy burlesque has given way to a more poignant account of an old man's folly, although it is hard not to see medieval misogyny at work in Phyllis's hideous, tight-lipped smirk.

While Phyllis is expected to sell for between 1.5 and 2 million at Sotheby's on Thursday, on the previous day another Cranach proto- feminist heroine takes a bow at Christie's. This is Mrs Martin Luther, otherwise Katharina von Bora, who escaped from her Cistercian convent with eight other nuns hidden in empty herring barrels and then refused the succession of suitors offered to her. In Wittenberg, Katharina lodged in Cranach's household, and it was his friend Luther who set out to find the women husbands. Finally, she suggested Luther himself and this unconventional suit - he married to please his father and to spite the Pope and the devil - was to prove a match made in heaven. This pair of panels, made on the occasion of their marriage, comes to the block with an estimate of 300,000-500,000.

SO, too, does the chilliest of winter landscapes by Jan van de Cappelle, a picture Christie's pulled at the 11th hour from its recent Rome sale, where it had been catalogued as 19th century despite its signature - after all, what would a real van de Cappelle be doing there? At Christie's Rome, it was expected to make a 10th of its present estimate. I bet some sharp-eyed members of the Italian trade are cursing.

Gallic revolution

IT was, as the Princess Laure de Beauvau-Craon put it, an occasion "his-tor-ique". On the evening of 29 November in Paris, Sotheby's became the first ever foreign auction house to stage a sale in France - and thus ended a monopoly dating back to 1556.

The auction, of the third part of the distinguished library of Belgian bibliophile Charles Hayoit and originally scheduled for the premises of Sotheby's associates in France, Poulain Le Fur, was switched at the last minute to Sotheby's own Galerie Charpentier on the Faubourg St Honor.

Auctioneer Alain Renner dedicated the sale to Laure de Beauvau, the head of Sotheby's France, and a driving force in the reform of France's protectionist auction system.

Appropriately enough, underneath the legend "Opening of the French Art Market" on the saleroom wall was a quote from Heraclitus taken from the first lot (a French translation of Gabriele d'Annunzio's Fire) - "Without hope, the unhoped for cannot be attained". For, as anyone in, or out, of France would have told you, the prospect of finalising any reform of France's cosy, antiquated art-market laws after years of heroic prevarication seemed about as hopeless as hopeless can be.

A huge swathe of the French commissaires-priseurs (their equivalent of our auctioneers) were - rightly - scared at the prospect of international competition, the French political class no less keen to keep tight state control. From now on, auctioneers no longer need to be officers of the judiciary, and art auctions are just business. Gone are the days when a law degree allowed anyone to buy a tenure from a previous incumbent, and rake in a share of half the year's auction profits, regardless of whether he or she worked or not.

It was a system that hardly encouraged innovation or exertion.

Now the world is waiting to see what the French art trade will do with its new-found liberation - most commissaires-priseurs have prepared for the onslaught of international competition by forming self-protecting alliances with one another. Even Pierre Berg, the long-time business partner of Yves Saint Laurent, is apparently making a move on all 62 Parisian auctioneering tudes.

What is this French obsession with fashion and art? It will be a battle of titanic egos with Arnault (Phillips), Pinault (Christie's) and Berg in the ring.

As for the Hayoit library, it proved an auspicious inaugural sale for a company that was founded in 1744 as booksellers. All the lots of the mammoth three-day event sold, for a total of 1.8 million, way over the presale estimate. Andr Gide's manuscripts, proofs and corrected editions of The Counterfeiters also neatly demonstrated that France has not relinquished her power to keep what she deems national treasures - the lot was bought by the Bibliotheque Nationale by the droit de premption (the state's right to substitute itself for the final bidder). And the D'Annunzio went for 10 times its estimate - bought by Kristin van Riel, former chief executive of Sotheby's France, to present to Laure de Beauvau.

Copyright 2001
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