A portrait painted by Botticelli about 540 years ago sold for more than $ 92 million at auction on Thursday at Sotheby’s headquarters in New York, marking a new record price for a work by the Renaissance artist and easily predicted more than 80 million by experts.
According to Sotheby’s, it was the first time the painting “Young Man Holding a Medallion” had been offered for sale since 1982 and only the fourth time it had been sold in the last 200 years.
“The last time it was released was in 1982. Before that it was in a private collection from the early 20th century, and before that in another one from the late 18th century, we think. So you don’t see it often.” Christopher Apostle, the New York director of Sotheby’s Grand Masters division, told EFE.
The auction house described the work as “one of the finest Renaissance pieces to ever come up for auction” due to several factors, including its exceptional condition, despite being over 5 centuries old, and the fact that it is one of only three portraits. Botticelli will remain in private hands.
“In my 30-year professional career, I have never had a Botticelli that comes close to quality, condition, beauty and importance,” said Apostel.
The piece, sold in a week of auctions dedicating Sotheby’s to the great masters of art history, reached the exorbitant figure after just over 4 minutes of battle between several buyers bidding over the phone through company representatives present in New York and London. . offices.
From the starting price of $ 70 million, it took less than 60 seconds to reach the hammer price of 80 million offered by a telephone buyer from the London headquarters, a figure that rose to $ 92,184,000 after the addition of fees and taxes.
For example, “Young Man Holding a Medallion” pulverizes the previous maximum price of a Botticelli work, nine times higher than the 10.5 million paid in 2018 for “Madonna and Child with John the Baptist”.
Moreover, it ranks as the second most expensive portrait painted by one of the great masters (painters of Europe before 1800) in history, behind only Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi”, which sold for $ 450.3 million in 2017.
Before being sold, the work traveled to several cities around the world, including London, Dubai and Los Angeles, before arriving in New York, a tour that created enormous expectations, especially in the British capital and in the metropolis of the United States. Arab Emirates. ., where in one day some 300 people went to the galleries of the auction house to admire it.
Although Botticelli was a very famous artist who painted several members of the Medici family, the great patrons of the Renaissance of Florence, very few of his portraits have survived the passage of time, and most are on display in museums.
In 1982 the piece sold for about £ 810,000 (about $ 1.1 million at the current exchange rate), but this time experts valued it at $ 80 million before auction compared to other masterpieces released, such as Francis Bacon’s. or Picasso.
Sotheby’s also stressed Botticelli’s relevance in art history, recalling that he is responsible for some of the most iconic pieces, such as “Spring” and “The Birth of Venus”.
“Sandro Botticelli is truly the quintessential Florentine Renaissance artist. Before Michelangelo and before Leonardo da Vinci, there was Botticelli,” Apostle emphasized.
It is also the second painting to exceed $ 80 million at Sotheby’s auction since the house was forced to sell digitally to the highest bidder due to the pandemic last June, when $ 84 million was paid for “Triptych inspired by Aeschylus’ Oresteia. by Francis Bacon.
At the auction Thursday, collectors were also impatiently waiting for the sale of the small but masterful painting ‘Abraham and the Angels’, a work by Rembrandt worth between $ 20 and $ 30 million and one of the few five biblical paintings of the Dutchman. In private hands.
However, the piece was withdrawn from the auction shortly before sale.