Lempertz returns to the spotlight in Cologne with its traditional fall auction devoted to old masters and nineteenth-century paintings, scheduled for Nov. 22. The German house will present a selection of 190 lots spanning centuries of European art history, with a special focus on Italy, its views and its Renaissance and Baroque masters. Part of the works will also be hammered out in the special My Choice auction, set for December 3, consisting of fifty lots and designed to honor the fiftieth anniversary of Hendrick Gastein, patron of the auction house. Italy, with its centuries-old charm and cities of art, is the big star of the November round. The Italian views, so beloved by foreign travelers and artists, compose a sort of Grand Tour ante litteram that symbolically leads from Rome to Venice to the south of the peninsula. The ideal itinerary opens in the capital with Oswald Achenbach’sFontanadi Trevi, estimated at between 60,000 and 80,000 euros, an example of the German painter’s ability to render the luminous and scenic atmosphere of Roman places. Also belonging to the same section is The Market Street in Rome, a large oil on canvas by Franz Theodor Aerni, with an estimate between 12,000 and 14,000 euros.
From the streets of Rome, the gaze shifts to Venice, immortalized by Friedrich Nerly, a central figure in Romantic landscape painting. Two of his paintings will be among the auction’s most eagerly awaited lots: View of St. Mark’s Basin, valued at between 200,000 and 300,000 euros, meticulously restores the vibrancy of the lagoon city, suspended between commerce and legend; The Piazzetta of Venice in the Moonlight, painted around 1835 and estimated at 80.000 to 100,000 euros, comes from the collection of Giovanni Leonardo Frizzoni, father of the famous art historian Gustavo Frizzoni, collaborator of Giovanni Morelli and a leading figure in 19th-century criticism.
The ideal route of the journey continues along the Neapolitan coast, where Joseph Rebell’s Veduta della baia di Sorrento, with dancing peasants and Vesuvius in the background, estimated at 30,000 to 40,000 euros, stands out. The work depicts the Gulf of Sorrento with the birthplace of Torquato Tasso, a subject much loved by German Romantic travelers. In the same thematic vein are Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach ’s The Villa of Tiberius on Capri (€16,000-20,000) and Andreas Achenbach ’s Scylla on the Calabrian Coast (€30,000-40,000), in which the painter depicts the everyday life of fishermen leaving or intent on mending their nets.
Ample space is also reserved for the Italian Renaissance, represented by works of great historical and attributive interest. Prominent among them is the Resurrection of Christ by Francesco Rosselli, estimated at between 70,000 and 90,000 euros. The small oil on panel shows in the foreground Saints Jerome, Francis of Assisi, Lucy and Benedict kneeling before the Redeemer, while a hilly landscape with episodes from the Passion unfolds in the background. The painting has a complex history: it was in fact illegally taken over by Hermann Göring and Alois Miedl during the Nazi period, stolen from the gallery of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker. Today it is back on the market in agreement with the Dutch collector’s heirs.
The School of Parma is attributed the Portrait of Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza (25,000-30,000 euros), which restores the image of the Farnese patron according to the humanistic canons of Leon Battista Alberti. The painting extols the virtues of the ideal prince-justice, courage, generosity, erudition-through symbols such as the book, the sarcophagus, the sun, and the eagle, emblems of culture, strength, and heroic destiny. Also from the same Renaissance context comes a Saint Magdalene, estimated 10,000-15,000 euros, attributed to a disciple of Leonardo da Vinci’s school, evidence of Leonardo’s influence on a wide and articulate circle of followers.
The Neapolitan Baroque is represented by two major works, Dido receiving Aeneas and Cupid taking the form of Ascanius by Francesco Solimena and his workshop, with an estimate of 50,000-60,000 euros, and The Holy Family (Rest during the Flight into Egypt) by Filippo Vitale (20,000-25,000 euros). The two canvases exemplify the different declinations of the Baroque language in Naples between the 17th and 18th centuries: on the one hand the scenographic classicism of Solimena, on the other the intensely Caravaggesque naturalism of Vitale, sensitive to the contrasts of light and the suggestions of Jusepe de Ribera. The still life section offers an unprecedented focus on women artists between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Natura morta con pesche e uva (Still Life with Peaches and Grapes ) by Fede Galizia, estimated at 80,000-100,000 euros, reflects the Lombard painter’s mastery in combining naturalistic observation with the dramatic use of light in the style of Caravaggio. Dialoguing with her is Natura morta floral (15,000-20,000 euros) by Margherita Caffi, an internationally renowned artist who worked for the Spanish and Austrian courts and received major commissions from the Medici.
Completing the catalog are two Heads of Vegliardi, signed respectively by Giambattista Tiepolo and his son Giovanni Domenico. The Bearded Philosopher’s Head (160,000-180,000 euros) by the Venetian master is part of the deitronies genre, studies of heads and characters prevalent in seventeenth-century Dutch painting, particularly in Rembrandt. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s Head of an Old Man (80,000-100,000 euros) continues the tradition with a more intimate and introspective tone, testifying to the generational dialogue between the two artists. The November 22 day will continue with a second part devoted to small masters and unattributed works, which will bring another 161 lots to auction in the afternoon session.
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| Lempertz, Old Masters and Renaissance Italy at auction in Cologne. |
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