870,000 Euro Lorenzo Lippi Old Master at Dorotheum

With the auction room filled to capacity, a crowd of telephone bidders drove the price for a work by Lorenzo Lippi up to 870,000 Euros at Vienna’s Dorotheum auction house.

His “Triumph of David” was created under the influence of the Roman and French reaction to Caravaggio, and as such is characterised by the masterful use of chiaroscuro effects.

It stands out for the poetic-sentimental expression on the features of its principal figures.

Only at the end of a protracted bidding battle was the painting finally knocked down to an international collector for 870,000 Euro, a top result for this artist and several times the expected price.

The rural idyll of a “Village Scene by the Well” by Josse de Momper and Jan Brueghel II.  found a new owner for 389,300 Euro, while the “Allegory of Taste”, also by Jan Brueghel II went to a telephone bidder for 274,670 Euro.

Influenced by such famous figures as Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo, the Florentine painter Giuliano Bugiardini, around 1510, created a strikingly modern three-quarter Portrait of a Lady.

This important recent discovery proved to be worth 329,300 Euro to the winning bidder. Another important new discovery, a portrait of probably the most famous art collector and patron in history, Emperor Rudolph II., by the hand of Martino Rota, sold for 260,300 Euro, a new world record sale for this artist.

An American museum spent 202,800 Euro on Juan de Espinosa’s “Still life of fruit, vegetables, and wild fowl”, a symbolic rendition of the cycle of life.

This auction, one of Dorotheum’s most successful old master auctions to date, also featured two paintings by famous female artists, achieving 179,800 Euro for a portrait by Sofonisba Anguissola and 133,800 Euro for Angelika Kauffmann’s portrait painting.

At the auction of 19th century painting on 17th April 2012, the catalogue’s title lot met with great acclaim. The “Girl with Black Mantilla” by Friedrich von Amerling went to an North-American bidder for 156,800 Euro. Friedrich Gauermann’s “Eagles and Dying Stag on the Lakeshore” reached 145,300 Euro. A comparatively small painting also caused a disproportionate stir: No larger than a post-card, a “Landscape on the Crimea” by Archip Ivanovich Kuindzhi, one of the most important proponents of Russian Realism, was bid up to sensational 133,800 Euro.