Finest Botticelli in private hands sells for a record US$92 million, nearly 800 per cent up on previous highest price for a painting by the Renaissance artist

Italian painter’s Young Man Holding a Roundel had been in the hands of late real estate developer Sheldon Solow, who bought it in 1982 for US$1.3 million
Botticelli is like Michelangelo and da Vinci, says one dealer in old masters, and adds: ‘It’s so rare to find a painting like this in great condition’

Art

Bloomberg

Published: 11:20am, 29 Jan 2021

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Auction house Sotheby’s sold an impeccably preserved painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli for US$92.2 million in New York, a 787 per cent increase from the artist’s previous, 2013 auction record of US$10.4 million.

The painting, Young Man Holding a Roundel, was executed around 1480 and depicts an elegant young man lightly holding a roundel of a saint. For the past 40 years, it had been in the possession of the late real estate developer Sheldon Solow, who bought the work in 1982.

Over time, the billionaire slowly donated fractions of the painting to his private foundation; at the time of the sale, his foundation owned at least 99 per cent of the painting, saving the Solow family some US$33 million in capital gains taxes.

Solow, who died in November at the age of 92, bought the work for US$1.3 million, meaning the sale realised an appreciation of about 6,992 per cent.

The roundel of a saint in Botticelli’s Young Man Holding a Roundel. This painting was sold for US$92.2 million on January 28. Photo: AP

The painting is widely considered the finest Botticelli in private hands. “I deal in this period, and it’s so rare to find a painting [like this] in great condition,” says Fabrizio Moretti, the founder of Moretti, an old masters gallery in London in Britain. “This is an occasion to buy something you’ll never find again.”

The work is one of only about a dozen extant portraits by the artist and contains many of the stylistic components he’s best known for (the expressive eyes, the illusionistic depth and decidedly lifelike countenance). Just as important, it portrays a handsome, charismatic subject.

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“Botticelli is an iconic painter,” says Milanese dealer Carlo Orsi. “He’s like Michelangelo and Leonardo [da Vinci] – there are a few iconic names, and they are so rare in the art market. That’s the reason they can go for big price.”

Sotheby’s estimated that it would sell for “in excess of” US$80 million, putting it within reach of only the wealthiest institutions or private buyers.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Getty in Los Angeles were the museums most dealers speculated would bid on the work; as for private individuals, most dealers speculated that wealthy Americans – flush from spectacular market returns in 2020 – or oil-rich collectors in the United Arab Emirates would be bidding on it in search of an unmatched trophy.

“Even contemporary art collectors can go for it,” said Orsi before the sale.

The painting was the 15th lot in Sotheby’s Old Masters sale on January 28. Like most recent major auctions, it was streamed live but without an in-person audience; the camera toggled between auction house specialists on stage sets in New York and London.

Abraham and the Angels by Rembrandt was withdrawn just before its auction on January 28. Photo: AP

Bidding for the Botticelli began slowly at US$70 million – and never really took off. Competition remained exclusively between Sotheby’s specialists Alexander Bell and Lilija Sitnika, bidding on behalf of clients on the phone.

After a little more than four minutes of back and forth, which included cajoling from the auctioneer Oliver Barker that included the line, “I doubt there’s going to be another one coming too soon, you might want to tell them that”, he brought the hammer at a final price of US$80 million, which grew to US$92.2 million with premiums.

“It’s thin air up there,” says Sotheby’s Christopher Apostle, who’s head of the department of old master paintings. “I feel very happy – I don’t think we left money on the table, it’s a great result.”

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The price exceeds all but a handful of old master sales and is more in line with the spectacular prices achieved for contemporary art. (The US$450 million paid for da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in 2017 is very much an outlier.)

In January 2020, for instance, Sotheby’s sold a rediscovered drawing by Andrea Mantegna for US$11.7 million and a painting of the Madonna by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo for US$17.3 million on the same day; in 2016, Christie’s facilitated the €160 million (US$178.4 million at the time) private sale of two Rembrandt van Rijn portraits, which at the time was a record.

And indeed, ahead of the sale, dealers were anticipating that the work would compare to those by living artists that have historically soared to nine-figure sums. “It’s something that’s very modern, which can sit next to a [Jackson] Pollock or anything else important – even a Jeff Koons,” says Orsi. “It feels very fresh.”

The buyer of the work was not immediately known.

While the New York sale saw a number of artists’ records broken, Rembrandt’s Abraham and the Angels (1646), valued at US$20 million-US$30 million, was withdrawn unexpectedly just before the sale. No reason was given.

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