Rembrandt proved the success story of the Old Masters season in London, though not, as expected, for his rediscovered “Adoration of the Kings” (c1628); that sold for below its £10mn-£15mn estimate with just one bid at £9.5mn (£11mn with fees) at Sotheby’s on December 6. While still the highest price of the season, demand for Rembrandt was more marked for Christie’s dedicated sale of 69 prints, from the collection of the mail-order businessman and broad-ranging collector Sam Josefowitz.
These all sold on December 7 for a total £6.3mn (£7.9mn with fees, est £3.1mn-£4.7mn), with bidding online coming from as far afield as China and Australia, as well as in the saleroom and over the phone. Top lot of the sale — and the last conducted by Christie’s star auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen — was St Jerome (c1653), which sold for £1.25mn (£1.6mn with fees, est £500,000-£700,000).
Josefowitz, who died in 2015, was introduced to Rembrandt’s engravings by a chance meeting on a flight with the American art dealer Ira Gale in 1969. His provenance, associated with scholarly quality, helped keep prices for the prints high, though an “Ecce Homo” from 1655, with the highest estimate put on the Josefowitz Rembrandts (£1mn-£1.5mn), failed to sell earlier in the day. A print from the same etching state at Sotheby’s sold from the estate of the Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos for £400,000 (£508,000 with fees).
Overall, Sotheby’s mixed-owner evening sale came in just under its low estimate at £16.2mn (£19.4mn with fees) while Christie’s nudged within estimates at £17.9mn (£21.9mn with fees).
There are only 25 recorded Pop period (1962-66) paintings by Pauline Boty, who encapsulated London’s Swinging Sixties with her blonde bob, black eyeliner and colourful, politically attuned art — and five of them are in a show at Gazelli Art House (until February 24). These include her 1962 work of the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, which sold at Sotheby’s last year for an artist record of £1.2mn. While this is not back on the market, says the gallery’s George Lionel Barker, archival photographs of Boty taken by Michael Ward and also on show are £3,000.
Boty died in 1966 aged only 28, of a tumour for which she refused chemotherapy as she was pregnant, and much of the work to bring her back into the limelight has been done by her sister-in-law, Bridget Boty, and the curator and art historian Sue Tate. Both are among the talking heads in a documentary about the artist, due to be screened at the gallery next year. The film’s writer and co-producer, Vinny Rawding, says that while there is much hardship associated with Boty — her widower and daughter both also died in tragic circumstances — his film is “a celebration of her life, bringing her back in the conversation as a Pop pioneer, standing shoulder to shoulder with [David] Hockney and [Peter] Blake”.
Greece’s Eurobank Asset Management has bought a minority stake in Mintus, a platform that fractionalises art for private individuals which launched last year. “It is a real confidence boost for us and for the art market, this was not done on a whim,” says Ben Clark, who became president of Mintus this year. The level of investment from Eurobank, which manages €5bn of assets, has not been disclosed.
Mintus was founded by Tamer Ozmen, previously a senior executive at Microsoft; investors buy into the regulated funds with a minimum $3,000, enabling private wealth banks “to offer a diversification play to their high-net-worth clients”, Clark says. Mintus launched with paintings by Andy Warhol and George Condo, initially valued at £3.8mn and £2.1mn respectively.
The art market has softened this year, particularly at the higher end. Clark says that this is likely to have an impact on the works they offer, which will be at more “accessible” values. (There are no updated valuations for the already purchased works.) The Eurobank investment enables Mintus to be “more active” in the art market next year, while its strategy could include other alternative assets, Clark says. Investment in these is expected nearly to double to $24.5tn by 2028, according to a recent report by industry data provider Preqin.
There’s never a dull moment at the Cromwell Place gallery hub these days. Having appointed curator and Turner Prize judge Helen Nisbet as its first chief executive and artistic director in August, and having recently announced an £2mn revamp of its buildings, the latest news is that chief operating officer Kathryn Waring and chief business development officer Elizabeth Dellert are leaving at the end of this year.
“We are going through a transformation and had to reassess the scale of our senior team,” Nisbet says. She promises more details of the new-look Cromwell Place early next year, saying that this “will include a curated programme that supports experimental art and more focused national and international partnerships, alongside the commercial galleries, who are very much a part of this”.
For anyone looking for a last-minute Christmas present that benefits a charitable cause, South London Gallery has a set of five prints by some of today’s most in-demand artists for £12,000 (edition of 45). All proceeds for the signed works — by Alvaro Barrington, Rashid Johnson, Gabriel Orozco, Christina Quarles and Haegue Yang — will go to the institution, which, like many, has been looking for new ways to raise money as public funding cuts loom. The price might be a little higher than for the average gift but, notes art adviser and SLG patron Janna Lang, the Johnson print alone (“Seascape”, 2021) can retail at £50,000 — so, for once, everyone could be a winner.
The Art Market column is taking a seasonal break and will be back in January
Follow FTWeekend on Instagram and X, and subscribe to our podcast Life and Art wherever you listen
