Collecting Drawings in the Twentieth Century: An Insider's Diary

good evening good evening ladies and gentlemen I'm Colin Bailey the director of the Morgan Library Museum welcome to our first lecture around the splendid for exhibition item by luminous brain zapping item one of the most one of the Paramount Group drawing shows of the era these are Holland Coty's words in the New York Times and they are music to our ears but completely if I may completely deserved this is an exhibition that summarizes the tremendous gift made by gene Thor who turns 90 this week to the Morgan Library Museum where he has been a trustee for 50 years under the stewardship of Jennifer tank ovitch the exhibition has been beautifully installed Stevens iotus with was the designer and a group of us were involved in working on the catalog which reproduces very very well every drawing that gene has given to the morgan the exhibition will remain open after the after NORs lecture which i'm very pleased to announce what better theme for a lecture this evening found that of collecting odd master drawings and this is this will be the over art our overarching the theme of the lectures associated with the for exhibition we hope to see you again in December on December 6th when Jennifer Tang Kovich will discuss the dealer Hans Coleman and the American market for old master drawings although he needs really no introduction it's known as a friend to many people here I'm delighted to welcome Nowell Nowell Ansley the deputy chairman of Christie's UK and a legendary rock on her this evening know join Christie's in 1964 straight from Worcester College Oxford where he studied classics known as mods and greats in those days and until quite late you could not study art history as an undergraduate at Oxford he's 50 years fifty three years later he's still working at Christie's so something must be going well and last September he organized the sale of Brian Sewell his his first department head the legendary cantankerous and brilliant art critic for The Evening Standard who had left Christie's in 1967 and gone on to become a celebrated journalist together nolé and Brian sue created the department of prints and drawings which thrives to this day no Lanza's talent as a connoisseur has led to major discoveries a misattributed a misattributed italian drawing was identified by him as by sebastiana Delpy ombo one of the great 16th century masters the sheet is now in the National Gallery in Washington and was seen in the recent exhibition Michelangelo and Sebastiano at the National Gallery in London will be coming here to the Michelangelo show at the Met opening next month notable again was his identification in 1987 of a cache of drawings found in an album as exceptional rare studies by Peter Paul Rubens he's made attributions to Michelangelo among others discovered an exceedingly rare sheet by the almost unknown draftsman Garofalo and there could I could continue for many many more examples no lands he took his first auction in 1967 and over the years achieved record prices for drawings by Titian can letter Michelangelo and Raphael he is bought to auction some of the greatest drawings to come on the market in the Chatsworth sales of the 80s and in 2007 he told he sold Turner's famous water color the blue Righi for 5.8 million pounds to the Tate Gallery so his his engagement has been in many areas many periods many artists what an opportunity for us tonight to hear no record reflect and recollect on collecting drawings in the 20th century and inside his diary please welcome to the Morgan Knoll Ansley [Applause] good evening and thank you very much Colleen for those generous words over generous perhaps when I joined Christie's in 1964 Jean Thor was already a seasoned picture dealer of more than 15 years experience he began collecting drawings in parallel with his dealing activities spurred on by the enthusiasm of Claire his wife of 63 years who sadly died just a few months again how private player would have been to walk round a magnificent exhibition which graces the walls of this legendary institution they have supported to say long as you well know our master drawings have been collected through these centuries with Giorgio Vasari the 16th century painter and architect being a pioneer among artists collectors who was sought inspiration from the imagination and skill of their predecessors and their contemporaries Vasari organized his collection in a series of volumes and arranged the drawings on the pages with attributions and decorative borders they serve as illustrations to his pioneering lives of the painters I'm going to show you both sides of an outstanding example the so-called Vasari sheet now at Washington to which I will return later you can actually see the Vasari is attribution written at the bottom of the sheet in that scroll and he dribbles the whole page and both sides to Filippo Lippi by whom he meant Felipe's illegitimate son Filipino and I'll show you the next side all the drawings on both sides II thought were by filippino lippi interestingly modern scholarship has suggested that the water color at the bottom is by probably by Rafa Dean Edell Garber another flaw in time and if we gave back to the first one the drawing up here is very probably by Botticelli it's not a certain game yet but it's very likely and here is an enlargement of that amazing machine now the worldwide drawings collecting scene seem quiet enough in the 1960s most of the activity was centred on London but New York and Paris were also prominent what is surprising now is the sheer quantity of drawings that appear on the market drawings were frequently offered in group Lots often described other noodly as parcels and I've made out they were often rubbish but in an era where photographs and reference books were scarce and expertise thinly spread there were opportunities for dealers and collectors and museum people to make discoveries but no one could have imagined them how many very fine drawings by the greatest artists would become available in the next decades but that is what happened I came to Christie's as call him saying straight after Oxford in 1964 not as a young artist Dorian but as one who's any qualifications stems from degrees in classics and a great enthusiasm for art I was to assist bra sooo a graduate in art history from the court held Institute who later achieved fame as a journalist and polemicist bran was the member of the Christie's picture department who had a particular affinity with drawings Christie's were lagging far behind Sotheby's at this period saw the B's had established separate departments for auctions of Oh master drawings and for prints run by Richard day of the familiar to many of you and Adrian eels likewise with specialised sales at regular intervals throughout the year I have an illustration of just such a sale some days as usual in those days somewhat subdued almost domestic the the auctioneer Peter Wilson you can't see his to the right of the picture but I'm looking forward to saying you'll be useful Richard day probably not figure many of you naina and Adrian eels standing there tamale in the background a good and Fortran drawing which you can possibly just make out there is being is being sold for 5,200 pounds Richard and Adrian became good friends of mine but only after the safety of their leaving Sotheby's a sale like this would have been dominated by quite a small group of dealers many of them based in London Carnegie's will be there in the purchase persona of Jim Byam Shaw lovely man one of the best all-round drawing scholars of his time he might have been entrusted with commissions from his friend Fitz looked that centuries may successful Scala collector and he often had bids from America there will be regular visitors from the continent Jean player and Adolphe Stein from Paris Marianna fighter felt from Zurich Lord of Aquatica from Amsterdam Apollonia from Rome other bars might have included Alistair Matthews alpha'd broad Peter class doctor Cavs she'd love in encipher health might be there from New York it was more a Posey group of professionals and they mostly knew each other some collectors would have been there as well but collectors would often bid through the dealers or buy from them after the sound drawings were seldom Illustrated often cursorily described and not expensive even by the standards of the time Mader and George Abrams would be there already in the 1960s they were beginning to assemble what became the finest private collection of darts drawings George has written amusingly about the advice they were given by the veteran hands Kalman telling shot who since his arrival in London as a refugee from Hamburg in 1938 had become one of the preeminent dealers in drawings gentlemen do not bid at auction he said and should you do so I doubt if you will be successful after later sale George openly bid on a drawing with a smile Kalman started bidding himself George dropped out leaving Kalman as the highest bidder then another dealer Herbert beer made a bid and Kalman dropped out again with a smile George but canny Gorge had asked mr. beer to bid for him and so he got the drawing George was scarcely mr. sale since the story does not quite suggest that the market was a player's shop but clearly it was not so easy for non professionals to cope with various nuances of catalog and indeed the absence of published estimates on rare occasions that Christie's was offered a significant joins connection an outside expert was commissioned to prepare the catalog the matchless Henry Oppenheimer collection of 1936 for instance was cataloged by Carl Parker industry illustrious keeper at the Ashmolean skip collection Selda Christie's in 1958 and formed in the 18th century relied on entries by AE Popham recently retired from the British Museum otherwise consignments of drawings to Christie's were usually some were Lea treated as preludes appendages to picture sales in early 1965 we had a chance to improve on this the death of Lord Harwood necessitated extensive sales from that Great Yorkshire house and a fine group of drawings which tancrède bur Aeneas had helped VL collect during and after World War one including works by carpaccio signore le this arresting drawing here from Reynolds's collection you see the mark Pietro da Cortona and Rembrandt gave us the opportunity to build a sail around these in addition we had 166 drawings from an album by Domenico te plaire consigned by law Beecham repetitive but easy on the sales went well enough for our masters to allow Braun and me to create a separate department for drawings watercolors and prints and therefore to compete on more equal terms with Sotheby's there I felt very exposed when Brian to good shots of him that decided to leave Christie's in early 1967 he had taught me a lot about looking at drawings but NASA byte client care I was with him in one of our reception rooms on a memorable occasion when a formidable lady disappointed by his response to an indifferent portrait which she prized highly said to him mr. sue you obviously don't like my picture tell me what would you do with it if it was yours Ron replied madam I would take it out onto the street and jump on it Braun was named outright to seek a career outside an auction house running the department was quite frightening at first I was only too aware of my ignorance and lack of experience I was however lucky in being able to make friends quite quickly with many members of what not might now be termed the drawings community and to seek their advice they were a variegated mixture many had escaped the appalling Nazi regime in the 1930s and fled to Britain or to the United States denude in the museums and universities in Germany and Austria of their most talented art historians but some of them in the process transferring their talents to the great benefit of Caen institutions abroad the Courtauld Institute for instance embraced johannes ville de great Michelangelo scholar and friedrich an tau jakob rosenberg went to the fog others like herbert beer alfred shaft the irreplaceable edmund Schilling with his peerless knowledge of early German art became knowledgeable dealers and advisors all helped me in different ways and when I started traveling to America to get business Janos Schultz that wonderful man was unfailingly kind and encouraging as was Charles ryskamp and I had an unforgettable day with Harold y'know Kim in Chicago looking at wonderful drawings by butter and etc and exquisite early German prints and taught me about Brahms the person I saw most of in this early phase was hams Carmen his was a big personality and a discerning eye they weren't had to be wary of optimistic attributions he introduced me to many of his clients Michael Jaffe a man of strong opinions would call call in from Cambridge to proffer advice or instruction on Rubens or Van Dyck the delightful JD van Helda would send me postcards with attributions to Dutch drawings always reliable Antony blunt announced on to sir Denis mom on Regina John gear was always a welcome visitor from the British Museum and often hilariously funny thus I was saved from many egregious errors but by no means all there were hurried visits from Jacob beam sorry there he is slightly blurred photograph but eminent curator of drawings at the met disdainful I always remember of lots we had to share him from vault of it soon the tragically short-lived genius who greatly increased our knowledge of Italian the rock craftsmanship and edited the invaluable my speed is envious areas which I'd recommend to anybody as an introduction to Oh master drawings we were visited by the great fritz locked we already saw to his dictionary of collectors marks we refer every day from Conrad oba oba still young and in his time a genius too from Philly Stanley a legend in this place of course drawings curator from 1945 I do not remember seeing Robert leamon who's collecting had slowed down by then but new dog and Laura Hyneman I do Ian Wood now giving you again architect turned real estate developer and himself Nemean painter was a less frequent visitor in those days though his drawings collection had got off to a cracking start some years before when he bought this imposing satire by benvenuto cellini fantastic going he bought it from Frederick sharp who in turn had bought it from Homs Carmen who seems for once to have underestimated its importance and rarity Baron hatvani on the other hand was often in our rooms an exile from Hungary and Austria and from a family with a long collecting tradition he had assembled our quite small but wide-ranging collection of which do master drawings and bronzes with a high point he enjoyed nothing more than entertaining experts from the museum and the trade in his house in Cadogan place teasing them about attributions and values and the possibility of selling and pitting them against each other he was probably the most demanding plant I have ever met and I'm including Norton Simon and he complained of neglect if I failed to visit him on an almost weekly basis when we will consume for digis quantities of excellent white Burgundy but I got to like him as perforce did my wife Caroline and I owe him a particular debt of gratitude as probably the first significant collector I was able to woo a way from Sotheby's the reward was a splendid group of Netherlandish landscape drawings from the famous trio in album sailed in 1973 and sales after his death which included the magnificent man taenia drawing now on display in the Thor exhibition another collector who became a friend was Villiers David whose apartment overlooking Green Park contained a wide variety of treasures outstanding among these was a Rembrandt red chalk study of a nude woman variously known as Eve or Cleopatra when it came up for sale in 1981 it fetched what was then a remarkably high price of three hundred and thirty thousand pounds as usual I conducted the auction and had the pleasure of taking a rapid succession of bids in leaps of twenty thousand pounds from Ian Wood nough who was competing against the ultimate buyer 2j paul Getty Museum represented by Robert light it marked the entry into the market of the Gettys newly appointed drawings curator George Goldner he had won the mandate to use resources from the huge request to the museum from paul Getty its founder to form a world-class collection of drawings where none had been before to complement the splendid antiquities and furniture and the less splendid paintings from the start George was aiming for the best and was necessarily very selective say much said that for time the Rembrandt acquisition remained in solitary splendor and wags talked about the Gettys Oh master drawing collection I wonder what George would have pursued in the record-breaking Robert Vaughn here sales at Sotheby's have staged three years before I should ask him that collection had been assembled between the wars and included an outstanding group of early German and Swiss drawings with a small watercolor landscape by juror fetching six hundred and twenty thousand pounds almost quadrupling the previous auction record for now master join the Gettys intervention in the drawings market had a dramatic effect six-figure sums became quite commonplace and this seemed to galvanize collectors who increased rather than decreased in numbers as well as encouraging more consigners if winning business organizing and conducting sales was a prime tasks of the auction high specialist and deeply satisfying when successful I can say that the most pleasure I've had working at Christie's has come from making attributions and by this I mean recognizing the authorship of a particular drawing and best of all connecting with a project for which it was made no one in my lifetime could match I'm seen an amazing talent who in the course of examining countless Italian drawings in print rooms across the world made literally many hundreds of attributions most of which were stood the test of time in the fall of 1976 I was leaving for lunch when intercepted by a man with a failure of drawings both Italian and Dutch he came I remember from Leicester among them was this largely fully worked out study of a profit with the collector stamp of Thomas Hanson the 18th century portrait painter and discerning drawings connector and an old attribution not too implausible to the 16th century Mannerist Pellegrino Tebaldi the style not tantalizingly familiar but not his and I was reminded of a similar drawing but what was it and where was it we took it in for research and I left this to my colleagues as the following day I was often a fortnight's trip to America I returned to find no progress had been made and the drawing had not even been fated not there several people had been consulted I told Caroline at home that evening that somewhere in our still quite small library of art books was one with a reproduction of a similar drawing and I was going to find it at 3 a.m. I struck gold the related drawing was at Chatsworth and I'd seen it reproduced in an admirable guide to Italian drawings by Winslow Ames which I don't since 1965 I harvest slept before coming in rushing into Christie's to confirm the connection so we had found the Sebastian Adele Pombo join perfectly preserved for his celebrated decoration of the bog arena Chapel in some Ketron Mon Toria Rome probably executed in 1517 you can see not a perfect reproduction of the interior of the chapel but you can see the profit top left I had and the recumbent figure very difficult to see coming down there what chance would there they are together a really compelling comparison I think you'll agree you should look at the similarities in physical type the treatment of the clothing the dark wash and the bold white heightening and the blue paper all were always preferred by the Venetian Sebastiani and each drawing is partly squared in red chalk the drawing fetched 104,000 pounds at the sale in 1977 at the time of Christ's second only to one for Michelangelo and Michelangelo had supplied Sebastiani with drawings for the flagellation in the same chapel and see the flagellation just the drawing is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington and you'll see it soon in the Michelangelo exhibition at the Met another attribution that I'm quite proud of which column mentioned came about in a curious way I was asked back to her highest in Warwickshire to update an appraisal and look at a dismembered album of male nude studies which I'd not seen before the binding had been damaged in a leak and the album taken to the Victoria and Albert Museum where the drawings were removed for conservation mounted separately and attributed to Bartolome Pass arathi a 16th century Balinese was a partial for powerful pen studies of male news fortunately I had been working on Rubens drawings in another context and realized that these were lost drawings for a projected Anatomy book by the artist others had survived but most were previously known from a series of copies in Copenhagen so I'm illustrating one of the muses join one of the Rubens is together with a bronze of an Akashi a nude by vilem van Tetreault de which Rubens have used as the basis for all these studies dating from his years in Rome and more striking perhaps and beautiful they shed fascinating light on his efforts to master human anatomy as it's frequently the case with Rubens not all scholars accepted this discovery first off but by the time the drawings were sailed in 1987 they had one general acceptance Christie's new drawings Department more or less held its own during a 1970s but the competition from Sotheby's was formidable Julianne stock had taken over from Richard de had the precious advice of Philip poncey who had joined Sotheby's from the British Museum in 1967 not a good moment for us we at Christie's were battered by a series of single illness sales at Sotheby's Strauss sale in 1970 which was here in New York the Ellesmere sales of the Karachi and Julia remodel in 1972 the gay phone hardly sales in 1976 new dog sales in 1977 and here in 1978 say the hatvani estate sale of 1980 was important for us indeed it contained the Mantinea drawing which jean bought and I've already showed you the villas David Rembrandt we sailed in 1981 as also described earlier and in 1982 we secured a fine private collection from Switzerland which yielded to the Getty a raffle drawing we had reestablished and a Reuben sheet after Titian in 1982 also came up the wing of Arella a blessing by Hans Hofmann I've sold many great prints by Jura but never a drawing or a watercolour when this was the nearest I got it had belonged to William as Dale and Alfred Morrison in the 19th century I hand carried it to Vienna to make a direct comparison with the famous wing in the Albertina and I remember how a sudden gust of wind almost tore it from me descending the aircraft steps we catalogue guitars attributed to Europe alas despite its superb quality recently on display in Washington by general consensus now it is a juror imitation by Hoffman his very best and the jura monogram to see what you see here was applied by Hofmann himself and the date tricky stuff it was a typical purchase of Iain wouldna who bought two other excellent drawings in the same cell and seemed to be bringing a new intensity to his collecting so from my bias point of view all was proceeding in quite regular fashion until August in August 1982 I was summoned to a meeting with the lawyer representing the trustees of the Chatsworth settlement the only other person present was Christopher Ponte Christie's director specializing in taxation and estate duty a close colleague of mine to our astonishment we were told in strictest confidence that the trustees had decided that they must raise in excess of 5 million pounds to create an endowment fund to support the chance for the state and we were required to make a selection for sale from the world-renowned drawings collection it was to be a balanced selection which could appeal to an institutional distance from London like the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester as a kind of mini Chatsworth the Duke of Devonshire already had ties with Manchester being Chancellor of the University there and admired the knowledgeable people at the Whitworth my immediate reaction is to ask if the son could not be raised by selling a picture or the valuable collection of prints I knew the drawings well from carrying out appraisals from time to time and had regarded them as sacrosanct we were told that the money must come from the drawings the trustees were aware that the move would be greeted with huge concern by the heritage lobby and would prefer a private treaty sale to a British institution even though the tax advantages would be minimal rather than selling on the open market such was their concern about confidentiality that mr. Ponte and I agreed to consult anyone else in the firm part from our secretary's undertaking that we had no right to give and for which we would no doubt of face dismissal today so I drew up a list of around 70 suitable drawings seeking to minimize overall damage to the collection it was scary to do this without being able to consult colleagues Christopher and I went to Chatsworth to check the condition of the drawings and with a few minor alterations the proposal was delivered to the arts minister in October 1982 my valuation came to a little short of six million pounds inevitably delays ensued not until April 1983 were we informed that the government while expressing serious interest did not favor the idea of a northern Museum the British Museum must be the recipient by the time a meeting took place between the interested parties in June I'd found it necessary to increase my valuation of the drawings to 7.2 million because of a recent surge in prices meanwhile thank goodness we had sought and received permission to brief our chairman in advance of the inevitable leak that rector of the British Museum at the time Sir David Wilson never seemed enthusiastic about the deal the then people of prints and drawings queried some of the attributions as did the firm of dealers which have been invited to prepare another valuation both came up with figures some one and three-quarter million pounds lower than mine the most significant discrepancy they in the visage a sheet which I've already showed you at two hundred and fifty thousand pounds compared with my seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds it went on to fetch over three million in the auction negotiations dragged on into the new year and were finally broken off when the government side would not offer more than five and a quarter million pounds just one quarter of a million pounds less reduced figure the trustees were prepared to accept I'd rave Christopher up to Chatsworth and together we loaded the boxes of drawings into my car and set off back to London in a snowstorm this tantalizing near-miss for the nation was as it turned out very fortunate both for the Devonshire family and for Christie's and indeed for my career the excitement in the run-up to the auction on July the 3rd 1984 this quite outside our previous experience nonetheless there was plenty of controversy over the estimates in many instances already record-breaking sums for the artists concern the quality of the drawings should have paid for itself that I could not help feeling very nervous as I climbed into the rostrum I climbed by that stage after lot to however at the Roxy Medina fetched five times estimate I began to relax and allow myself to think this could be going to work the sale took place nearly two years after conversations have begun you can imagine that the leak of many months before had galvanized George Goldner and the fame of Chatsworth had attracted the attention of many collectors not generally for ceiling drawings George of all people was aware that this represented an unprecedented and probably unbeatable opportunity to acquire masterpieces for the burgeoning Getty collection and laid his plans accordingly he was not one to be put off by large estimates what even the astute George had not reckoned with however was the extent to which collectors who had hitherto operated at a much lower level at least four drawings were concerned would raise their game and get carried away and he found himself outbid for the two stars of the show Rafael's head and hand stunning thing an auxilary cartoon for the Transfiguration which was unfinished at the artists death in 15-20 and the two-sided Masari sheet which I already showed you each of these fetched over three million pounds some five times more than the previous record held at Adyar watercolor in the hair cell six years before the extraordinary group of Rembrandt landscapes whose condition had been criticized by the British Museum's advisers flew away and denuded jean for there he was able to retrieve a great one many years later when we sailed it for the heirs of michael carrion blaze up well in addition to en woodenness Vasari purchase and Barbara Pierre sets could Johnson's raffle three other Lots made over 1 million pounds all bought by the Getty the Mantinea the exquisite raffle metal pointers and Paul and the Holbein portrait variant Lee underbid buy for the Getty also bought two marvelous Rubens drawings the van Dyck portrait of Hendrik van Valen and several other Lots and yet there were plenty left for private collectors from all over the world nay one who was at the sale will forget it the big room was filled to bursting and overheated by the television lights the flanking rooms had subsidiary auctioneers and crowds spilled down the stairs the main difference between this landmark sale and others then the fact that the audience was mostly there to participate in the bidding not as mere spectators telephone bidding was still in its infancy and online have not yet been dreamt of the atmosphere remained electric throughout the two hours it took to sell 71 lots and the sale total 21 million pounds three times my estimate and four times what the British Museum had been prepared to pay this event already 33 years again I transformed the market for Oh master drawings many owners especially in France came to realize that they had something of serious value on their hands Christie's and Sotheby's were able to mount important regular sales in Amsterdam Monte Carlo and New York in addition to London Paris came later the Jonah's cry was nothing left to buy was stilled such plenty is hard to conceive now the Getty of course continued to acquire at an impressive rate and other new collectors entered the lists Salah bees fought back at the spring wholesale in 1986 and that of John Gaines who held only briefly he's trophies from Ellesmere and Chatsworth Christie's had fine airmaster prints from Chatsworth in 1986 and a second much smaller tranche of joins in 1987 chiefly notable for four more Rembrandt landscapes - red chalk raffles and Barocci is glorious large Modelo for the madonna del Popolo we sailed this for a second time in 1999 and it is now in a Chicago collection it remains one of my top favorite drawings all this activity stimulated an interest an increase in private collecting and a spate of impressive exhibitions en wouldna died in 1990 and many of his treasures have gone to Washington into the tender care of our friend Andrew Robinson at the National Gallery but other collectors of taste and energy have emerged this side of the Atlantic in particular and it has been our pleasant task whether as auctioneers or dealers to keep them supplied D Nixon Casper David and Julie Toby and chips more in new york and sell bent Jean and Steven Goldman Richard and Mary gray in Chicago they are just some of the collectors who have exhibited their holdings while Jean Bonner in Geneva has added an extensive collection of to his remarkable library and has published beautiful catalogs one of mine more importantly one of his favorites is the Boucher gorgeous thing woman's head from the back he pursued it the first time it came up at Christie's in 1995 and caught it when he returned six years later George Goldner moved from the Getty to the Metropolitan Museum in 1993 his last Getty purchase was Michelangelo's large and impressive rest on the flight from major Eustace Rob's connection but as most of you will know he proved just as a as a positive at the Met and added thousands of drawings and prints to the collection before his retirement two years again he continues to advise an exceptionally active and discerning collector here in New York whose identity will be no secret to many of you the chance was drawing sales were followed by one from hukum in Norfolk which we organized in 1996 it may have been less important but was particularly strong in Rome and Barack joins reflecting the taste of the young grandtourist it would cook first out of Leicester this rare get radical turned a landscape drawing is typical that same year we had to work hard to secure a truly outstanding games were going which our general value had spotted in a Long Island attic categorizes of reproduction it went to the Getty another New York find was this ravishing garabrant Van Daan egg hunt a pure wash drawing full of Rembrandt's influence which gene Thor was able to secure in 1995 two years before he bought the atmospheric Phillips conic Lance magnificently that blaze up did there's a panorama from the estate of his own friend and mine Laura Hyneman the splendid Hyneman ta plays having come to the Morgan this brandy died his Rembrandt and Rembrandt school Holdings which also include the ex Chatsworth Amsterdam hide Scouts I've shown you already and the four musicians fabulous thing which he bought earlier through another mutual friend of ours Richardson Richardson and Hudson connected I daresay he'd have wanted the handsome Hyneman and which we sailed in 1997 now the met the summer of 2000 saw an amazing sound as a young man at Oxford I could not have expected that my friend and occasional bridge partner would 40 years on give us for sale his father's Michelangelo study for the risen Christ syringe Lee Ford had bought it through Carnegie at the Oppenheimer sound in 1936 it set a new world record at eight million pounds glorious in a quite different way was the Samuel Parma of trees and learnings to the park what a thing which jean bought the month before when it appeared without fanfare in my office I thought it was the most beautiful Parma I'd ever seen and I still do you'll have marveled at it in the current exhibition 2001 brought a call from Carter Braun retired from his celebrated tenure as national gallery director I flew from London to join my Christie's colleague Stephen lash at Carter's home in Washington to discuss the sale of his Leonardo horse and rider one of the most famous drawings in America we were admitted to the house but at first there was no sign of either Carter all the drawing eventually he appeared but still no drawing our heart sank then with a flourish he lifted a cushion from the safer and there it was small but exquisitely formed no reproduction comes near during a justice and of course it is grotesque it is serious for I took it on what seemed like a world tour and the tiny drawing made a huge price 8 million pounds like the Michelangelo in the same year an unusually expansive panorama of dordrecht by Kuip away from its slumber in New England conservatively estimated to say the least it made 2.8 million dollars I still recall the Salem battle between Lucca Baroni and Robert Northland I had expected George Goldner to buy the wonderful and very del Sarto which I am now showing you but in fact it was acquired by Luca Baroni for another distinguished collector and has just gone to the Getty with the ex Castle Howard Michelangelo and other treasures including this haunting parmigianino portrait which is get quite small but astonishing reverting to the Andrea del Sarto this drawing was known they knew through a black-and-white photograph in John Sherman's monograph on the artist and had been missing since the 1920s early in 2005 our Zurich representative emailed us an image in color we swiftly prepared a proposal for sale even before seeing the original and I flew to Basel to present it on a chilly winter's day some joseph's head is the same size in the related painting in the pity you may have seen the drawing recently in the exhibition initiated by the Getty and also shown that the Frick probably of similar date to the Andrea del Sarto but such a contrast in its normal directness almost brutality is the head of a man by Hans Belleville from the second collection formed by France colleagues it made the journey from Amsterdam to New York in 2007 and Lara's idea major early drawings scarcely ever appear on the market in 2006 came Turner's blue Wiggy long celebrated as perhaps the best of the series and one of the most evocative of the artists late watercolors as you can see it was its fourth appearance at Christmas competition was fierce and to the acute disappointment of the American buyer the Tate launched an appeal to buy it which was successful the price of five point eight million pounds will long remain a record for eternal watercolor it provides a tenon contrast with the for watercolor also the Swiss subject and a similar date in 2007 my New York friends John and and strikes gave us fragonard's radiant wash real dell'Amore for sale I'd known it from the days it hung in John's mother's apartment in Fifth Avenue or on Fifth Avenue if now resides via our London sale only a few blocks away from its previous home the underbid owed over 1 million pounds was on the Internet as auctioneer I found this rather disconcerting but I dare say it's a commonplace now especially in sales of Contemporary Art and talking of bragging ha I'd like to highlight the Thor portrait which he bought from mrs. Donald stratum before I sailed the rest of her collection in 1984 her marvelous resolve on Suzanne McCulloch secured for Chicago and how Susan's mentor Harold erican would have approved in 2009 we sailed the Raphael muse for groundbreaking 29 million pounds again to a New York buyer over three times the previous record for their master joining it had belonged to an irascible but discerning British character called Paranal Norman Colville who earned another raffle a study for the Macdonald fish not Edinburgh and an enchanting the allowed is silver Point which went to the Fitzwilliam in 2011 Bojan apparently had a triumph with this adorable Goya now in a New York production during his 10 productive years of Christie's he secured several other Goya's for sale he would certainly admire the fine examples in the Fall collection perhaps especially the touching we acordes but ya know Schultz found for Jean in Brussels many years ago in fact I think that was jeans first coil going in 2013 in a spectacular New York sale we included a brilliant Claude landscape from the so-called Wilden Stein album thanks to the sensitivity of a colleague in the impressionist and modern Department she had attended our walk round of the Ansel bent master drawings in Chicago the exhibition which helped her singled out this drawing for us while appraising a collection otherwise completely of Modern Art it attracted great cross market interest and created a new record for Claude in 2014 and 15 celebrated Van Vechten altona collection with exceptional Dutch and Flemish drawings was dispersed in for sales in London and Paris with - in Amsterdam here I was able to help Bosma in what served as his swan song but most of the credit should go to him and Jonathan Genoa this is the compact but extremely powerful Reuben study for samson and delilah painting of 1611 is in the National Gallery in London the drawing is also now in New York I've been wondering if and where I should include a brief reference to fakes a real hazard in our field once pointed out of course they usually look both crude and obvious but New Kids on the Block as I was in the 1960s are particularly vulnerable the rooks did you as Eric Himel did me they prey on your inexperience and on your eagerness to attract property for sale I embarrassed to show you this upon tour man which we sold in 1968 it's now been the property of Christie's and will remain same even at the time there were naysayers and now it looks so obvious the fourth barge collectors Marc created by heaven the heavy paper the clumsy juxtapositions on the sheet yet most drawings people were taken in by he born at the start called Nagas and that means Jimba I'm sure acquired a slew of dad Stephanie della Bella drawings by him the Morgan has a say called school of Casa which even a burr who bought once accepted and a spurious Montaigne the elderly Hans Kalman acquired a series of supposedly early Florentine heads in metal point the British Museum has a supposed VanDyke deposition others see heavens where none exists of course I first rumbled him by taking one of the newly his newly created Pyrenees to the British Museum for comparison with the real things he born further muddied the waters by writing books and claiming impeccable drawings as his own work and legs and annan off has probably been a longer termed menaced and heaven I wonder how many of you have heard of him now he was absorbed into the French art world and even co-authored a two-volume Loredana their e-commerce of Boucher paintings as well as the separate volume on Boucher drawings initially I was taken in several times not least because he skillfully mixed up provenances and furnished new drawings with plausible references to older literature and sale sale catalogs unlike heaven he seems to have been a purveyor of fakes rather than a creator his four-volume catalog of Fragonard drawings did a lot of damage too and his tentacles encompass gabrielle de santo man as well Sotheby's saw through him first say it came on to me often with genuine drawings as well as dads they died there are unfamiliar people at work now making fakes and it will take time that he used to become recognizable say we must all continue to be extra vigilant I mentioned my mentor and friend Brown seal near the beginning of this talk but it seems fitting to end it by showing you the splendid daniela de Volterra drawing of Dido which was the highlight of Browns estate I organised last year the picture from which this said as a study is known only through a poppy but the associated wrongs fascinatingly is in Munich this drawing again went to an American collector which serves to underline the point that during the last fifty years when great drawings are sold they usually end up in America and they will no doubt continue to do so sir congratulations to you all I hope you've enjoyed at least some of this admittedly rather one-sided saunter down memory lane I shall finish by saying how lucky I mean not only to get into Christie's in the first place but to be allowed to spend much of my time here exercising my hobby as my profession and to do it with the help of say many clever and agreeable people starting with Francis Russell and Hugh J Chapman and most recently with Stein Al's Dave's taking over the leadership of our own master drawings team I've made many precious friends among collectors museum people art historians and dealers who supported our efforts through thick and sometimes through thin I'm so grateful to them all [Applause] you

Channel: The Morgan Library & Museum

Views: 2,233

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: The Morgan Library & Museum, The Morgan, Chirstie's, Thaw Collection

Id: b7Fj1h5fu8g

Length: 66min 24sec (3984 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 30 2017