Paintings, drawings, sculptures 14 - 19th c. - Wonderful Triptych

The highlight of the auction with € 780,000 was Adriaen van Overbeke’s triptych, Ecce Homo. Further top lots were paintings by Abraham Mignon (€ 454,000), Salvator Rosa (€ 139,000), Jan Brueghel the Younger (€ 126,000) and Michaelina Wautier (€ 101,000). At the pinnacle of the 19th Century with € 106,000 were paintings by Carl Rottmann and Oswald Achenbach. In total, the auctions brought a very pleasing result of 8.6 million euro; jewellery, watches, silver and porcelain were also much in demand. Many estimates were significantly exceeded.

Of unusual painterly quality was a Flemish altar, a so-called triptych from the early 16th century. The outstanding and hitherto unknown work depicting Ecce Homo on the centre panel, made in Antwerp by the painter Adriaen van Overbeke – active between 1505 and 1530 – was highly sought after and was pushed up to € 780,000 by a Netherlands collection. On the basis of the coats of arms depicted, the altar could be identified as the commission of an English donor couple. For John Vowell, this triptych was an investment in his salvation; but he also acquired a modern work of art created in the leading artistic centre of the Netherlands, Antwerp. This altarpiece is an exemplary work of early 16th century Antwerp Mannerism, of which Adriaen van Overbeke was one of the leading exponents. The European appeal of his art – and of Antwerp as an art centre – is attested by this altarpiece for an English patron (lot 1503, € 400/500,000).

The portrait of an Old Man with Beard from the hand of Rembrandt’s friend Jan Lievens has been identified by research as a hitherto unknown precursor to a painting in the collection of the Russian Tsarina Catherine II, today found in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. It was sold under provision for € 400,000 (lot 1554). A so-called Forest Floor Still Life by the Frankfurt artist Abraham Mignon emerged again after a period of over fifty years. It lay unnoticed in a Rhenish private collection but had found its way into the catalogue raisonné of the early-deceased painter through a preserved photograph. Only 69 recognised paintings by Mignon are known. The Belgian trade were eventually the successful buyer for € 454,000 (lot 1563, € 350/400,000).

A still life from the Golden Age of Dutch painting by an Utrecht Master around 1617–1619 sold for € 82,00 to a German collector (lot 1560, € 70,000), whilst a very decorative still life with seafood and fruit by Jan van Walscapelle was acquired by a Netherlands collector for € 94,500 (lot 1564, € 80/100,000). Salvator Rosa’s Coastal Landscape is a hitherto unpublished typical landscape for the artist’s mature phase and was probably painted in the 1650s and is closely linked to other paintings of this time in which Rosa often depicted the mountainous topography of the Roman landscape. It has now passed to a South German collection for € 139,000 (lot 1540, € 90/120,000). Raid on a Caravan is a 1601 collaborative work by Jan Brueghel the Younger and the circle of Sebastian Vrancx – a version of the collaborative work by Jan Brueghel and Sebastian Vrancx in the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, entitled Surprise Attack on a Convoy. The painting in the Prado and the present work are almost identical in terms of composition, technique and dimensions (lot 1544, € 100/120,000). Important lots also included two copper panels with depictions from Greek mythology by the Austrian painter Franz Christoph Janneck which have now moved to a private collection for € 151,000 (lot 1590, € 120/140,000).

The 19th Century also featured a number of highlights crowned by Oswald Achenbach’s Quirinal Palace in Rome from 1892. The much sought after painting was eventually won by the Roman trade for € 126,000. This Roman veduta by Oswald Achenbach, painted in 1892, impresses on the one hand with its unusual composition with an imposing view of the Quirinal Palace to which the artist has moved so close that the obelisk is cut off at the upper edge of the painting, where the dioscuri sculptures appear all the more monumental. Also impressive is the rich staffage, which, as so often in Oswald Achenbach's work, includes all walks of life (lot 1721, € 40/50,000). Carl Rottmann’s Aulis was forced up far above its € 25/30,000 estimate, selling to an English collector for € 105,000 (lot 1696), whilst Elderly Beggar by Konstantin Jegorowitsch Makowski, painted in the 1890s, was also raised from € 30/40,000 to € 76,000 (lot 1729). Two still lifes with fruit from the hand of Wilhelm and Emilie Preyer, the most important German painters of this genre, also sold considerably over their estimates for € 50,500 and € 55,000 (lot 1710, € 30/35,000 and lot 1711, € 20/25,000).

The star lot of the sculpture was a Madonna and Child, made in Burgundy in around 1400 from stone, which sold for € 45,000 (lot 1613, € 50,000).

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at 0221/92 57 29–30.

Edgar Abs
Press and public relations
Cologne, November 2022