Titian Portrait for Christie’s London Auction
Published December 5th, 2005
Italian painter Titian’s unfinished “Portrait of a Lady and Her Daughter” goes on sale for as much as 8 million pounds ($13.8 million) at Christie’s International in London on Dec. 8. The rediscovered work is the star of this week’s old-master auctions in the U.K. capital.
The 16th-century portrait, with only the faces and one hand of a golden-haired woman and a dark-haired girl fully worked by the artist, was repainted 400 years ago as “Tobias and the Angel.” It passed from collectors such as Tsar Nicholas I to French art dealer Rene Gimpel, whose heirs have put the restored painting on the block.
Sellers are taking advantage of a 26 percent spurt in old- master prices over the past 12 months, according to sales tracker Artprice.com. A Canaletto painting of Venice sold for 18.6 million pounds in July.
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