Here are what works are for sale at the Brooklyn Museum. Good opportunity for Italy

Four rounds for Brooklyn Museum masterpieces going up for auction at Christie’s: the U.S. museum, as we reported on these pages, has in fact auctioned off some of its jewels to cope with the severe economic crisis into which it has been thrown by the Covid-19 emergency. This is the first time a major U.S. museum has sold its works due to financial problems. There are twelve in all: two works (one by Jean-Georges Vibert and one by an anonymous Dutchman) will be offered for sale in two online auctions to be held Oct. 1-16, while the other ten will all be offered for sale on Oct. 15: the older ones in the Old Masters auction, and the modern ones in the European Art Part I auction. Both will take place in New York. Italy has the opportunity to bring back some important works that were in ancient times on our territory. Let’s see what all the lots are, starting with the five old masters and continuing with the five modern works.

Old Masters, Lot 1: Francesco Botticini, Saints Anne and Joachim
tempera and gold on panel, 21.6 x 13.5 cm. Estimate: $30-50,000
This is a fragment of a polyptych by Francesco Botticini (Florence, 1446 - 1497) depicting a Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple: another part of the complex is now part of the Saibene collection in Milan. Scholar Laurence Kanter is convinced that it is part of the same polyptych from which come three panels in the Colonna collection in Rome and a Marriage of the Virgin preserved in the Berenson collection at the Villa I Tatti in Florence. The fragment was purchased in the second half of the 19th century by a wealthy Brooklyn collector, William H. Herriman, who later left the work to the museum with his bequest.

Francesco Botticini, Saints Anne and Joachim

Old Masters, Lot 4: Donato de’ Bardi, Saint Jerome
tempera and gold on panel, 114.2 x 47.2 cm. Estimate: $80-120,000
Another fragment of a polyptych, attributed in 1973 to Donato de’ Bardi (Pavia, active from 1426 to 1450) thanks to the work of Federico Zeri, who was reconstructing the Lombard artist’s activity in those years. Two other fragments of the polyptych from which this St. Jerome comes, and which dates from 1445-1450, are in a private collection in Milan, and yet another, a St. John the Baptist, is instead kept at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan: there is thus an opportunity to bring the two fragments together in Italy.

Donato de’ Bardi, Saint Jerome

Old Masters, Lot 5: Giovanni dal Ponte, Madonna and Child with Saints Barbara, Dominic, John the Baptist, and Anthony Abbot
tempera and gold on panel, 82.1 x 49 cm. Estimate: $70-100,000
Formerly this painting by Giovanni dal Ponte (Giovanni di Marco; Florence, 1385 - 1438) was part of the important collection of the Marquis Rosselli Del Turco of Florence, but its ancient provenance is unknown. It became part of the Brooklyn Museum in 1925 with the bequest of collector Leo Healy. Art historian Angelo Tartuferi, a specialist scholar of late Gothic art in Florence, has dated it between 1420 and 1425, at a time when Giovanni dal Ponte was very close to Masolino and Masaccio.

Giovanni dal Ponte, Madonna and Child with Saints Barbara, Dominic, John the Baptist, and Anthony Abbot.

Old Masters, Lot 11: Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucretia
oil on panel, 61 x 40.6 cm. Estimate: $1,200,000 to $1,800,000.
This is the most valuable lot in the Brooklyn Museum’s selection: the work depicts the Lucretia episode from Roman history. It belongs to the most valuable phase of Lucas Cranach the Elder’s (Kronach, 1472 - Weimar, 1553) career, between 1525 and the mid-1530s, when the German painter produced his most iportant works. The Lucretia in question is in a less than optimal state of reading (the paint surface has suffered falls and retouches over time), but overall the state of preservation is very good. Two drawings of this painting are also known to be preserved at the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. It came to the Brooklyn Museum with the bequest of the collector Augustus Healy.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Lucretia

Old Masters, Lot 14: Lorenzo Costa (attributed), Portrait of a Gentleman.
tempera and oil on panel, 47.9 x 33 cm. Estimate: $60-80,000
This portrait was long thought to be the work of Alvise Vivarini, until in 1982 scholar John Steer, noting that the complexity of the subject’s clothes was not compatible with the Venetian artist’s painting, proposed the name of Lorenzo Costa (Ferrara, 1460 - Mantua, 1535): in 2002, the portrait was included in the monograph on Costa compiled by Emilio Negro and Nicosetta Roio, who, however, assigned it to Francesco Francia (attribution renewed a few days ago with a written communication sent to Christie’s). Instead, the aforementioned Steer and Carl Strehlke are leaning toward Costa: according to the latter, there are similarities between the Brooklyn Museum work and the portrait of Giovanni II Bentivoglio preserved in the Uffizi.

Lorenzo Costa (attributed), Portrait of a Gentleman.

European Art Part II, Lot 2: Gustave Courbet, Bords de la Loue avec rochers à gauche
oil on canvas, 70.8 x 107.3 cm. Estimate: $400-600,000
Signed and dated 1868, this painting was sold at auction in Paris, in 1881, four years after Gustave Courbet’s (Ornans, 1819 - La Tour-de-Peilz, 1877) death, at the Hotel Drouot, and it toured several private collections before arriving in the collection of Louisine Havemeyer: the latter’s son, Horace Havemeyer, and his wife Doris Dick Havemeyer, donated it to the Brooklyn Museum in 1941. It is a landscape of the Loue River, through which Courbet, as he was often wont to do, explores the “architectural” features of nature.

European Art Part II: Gustave Courbet, Bords de la Loue avec rochers à gauche

European Art Part II, Lot 3: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Italienne debout tenant une cruche
oil on canvas, 32.1 x 23.2 cm. Estimate: $200-300,000
Another painting sold at auction at the Hotel Drouot (in 1875, and again in 1889), it was given to the Brooklyn Museum in 1913 by New York collector Charles Adolph Schieren. The work was conceived by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (Paris, 1796 - 1875) during one of his sojourns in Italy: the first series of Italian models, in particular, dates from 1825-1826, and reveals a strong interest of a then-young Corot in documenting regional customs, although the artist was more attracted to the expressions of his subjects and their psychological profiles.

European Art Part II: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Italienne debout tenant une cruche

European Art Part II, Lot 6: Charles-François Daubigny, Un verger
oil on canvas, 129.5 x 162.6 cm. Estimate: $120-180,000
Painted circa 1871-1878, it was donated to the Brooklyn Museum by Augustus Healy (who purchased it from the Fifth Avenue Art Galleries in New York) in 1902. The orchard(verger in French) is a typical presence in the works of Charles-François Daubigny (Paris, 1817 - 1878): in this case, the French artist painted one at the moment of transition between summer and autumn. Paintings like these were very important for the Impressionists but also for the next generation of painters, starting with Vincent van Gogh.

European Art Part II: Charles-François Daubigny, Un verger

European Art Part II, Lot 21: Henrik Willem Mesdag, Marina
oil on canvas, 69.2 x 89.5 cm. Estimate: $120-180,000
Henrik Willem Mesdag (Groningen, 1831 - The Hague, 1915) was an important Dutch landscape painter of the second half of the 19th century, most famous for his maritime views, so much so that he left his hometown of Groningen to move to the Dutch coast: in 1869 he therefore took up residence in The Hague, and in addition rented a room in nearby Scheveningen, a fishing village. In this painting, the artist is interested in capturing the essence of the light and atmosphere of the sea and sky.

European Art Part II: Henrik Willem Mesdag, Marina

European Art Part II, Lot 24: Philip Wilson Steer, Under the trees
oil on canvas, 64.8 x 81.3 cm. Estimate: $60-80,000
This painting by Philip Wilson Steer (Birkenhead, 1860 - London, 1942) is dated and signed 1908, the year the artist stayed for some time in Dorset, where he spent time painting the countryside of this region of England. The painting, Under the Trees, was exhibited to the public in 1909 and was immediately appreciated by both critics and the public.It is a work that is influenced by his long contacts with French art circles.

European Art Part II: Henrik Willem Mesdag, Marina

Here are what works are for sale at the Brooklyn Museum. Good opportunity for Italy

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.