London, 5 July 2017: Tonight’s Old Masters Evening Sale in London realised a total of £52,514,750 / $67,880,566 / €59,856,239, a substantial increase on both London sales last year (July 2016: £16.5 million / December 2016: £14.8 million). One of the largest sales of its kind, comprising nearly 70 lots, the auction was 85.3% sold by lot, the highest- ever sell-through-rate for any Old Masters sale held at Sotheby’s in London, and the second consecutive sale of its kind to achieve a sell-through rate of over 80%.

The undoubted star this evening was  ’s – Ehrenbreitstein, which realised £18,533,750 / this is the highest price paid for an Old Master Painting at Sotheby’s London since the sale of the artist’s Rome, From Mount Aventine for a record £30,322,500 in 2014. One of only six major works by the artist left in private hands, it is a painting that looks forward to the likes of Monet and Rothko and others working today.

Across today’s Old Master Works on Paper and tonight’s Old Master Evening Sale, Sotheby’s sold one of the largest – and most valuable - offerings of Turner’s work to come to the market at any one time. Ten works on paper by the artist (among them an early watercolour of Ehrenbreitstein) were sold for a combined £1.3m, which together with Ehrenbreitstein brings the total for works by Turner sold today to £19.8 million.

Sale Overview
 The sale saw participants from 32 countries (up 28% from July 2016)
 Institutions acquired lots 23 and 35, Matthias Stomer’s The Judgement of Solomon and Jacopo
de'Barbari’s Portrait of Albrecht of Brandenburg.
 16% of participants registered to bid online tonight, and online bidders successfully acquired three still
lifes in the sale (lots 10, 11 and 56).
 58 lots sold / 68 lots offered
 45% of works sold above the high-estimate
 Pre-sale estimate: £48.6-71.1 million / $62.8 – 91.9 million / €55.3-81million
Fresh-to-the-market works
 40% of the works were offered at auction for the first time (27 lots out of 68)
 18% of the works (12) were offered at auction for the first time in over 50 years with 5 lots offered for the
first time in over a century.
 Two-thirds of artworks included in the sale hadn’t been seen publicly in over two decades.
Artist Records
Auction records were achieved for eight artists tonight including:
 Jan Van Scorel’s Portrait of a gentleman, wearing a fur-lined cloak and black hat (Lot 4) made £368,750 /
$476,646 / €420,301 (previous record for the artist £80,298).
 Jan Sanders van Hemessen’s Portrait of Elisabet, court fool of Portrait of Anne of Hungary (Lot 5) sold for
£2,168,750 / $2,803,326 / €2,471,938 – over 5 times over its low-estimate (previous record for the artist
£1,762,500).
 Hans Van Wechlen’s Peasants merrymalking at a village kermesse (Lot 9) fetched £296,750 / $383,579 /
€338,235 (previous record for the artist £180,500).
 Johann Richter’s Venice, the Piazzetta looking north-west towards the Campanile (Lot 22) made £368,750
/ $476,646 / €420,301, setting a new record in sterling (previous record for a single work by the artist £259,418).

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