Christie's Online Magazine No.231

From: Christie's - Saturday Jul 25, 2020 10:46 am

Christie’s

Art stories to feed the mind and soul

Found in a box, the $15 ‘brass ornament’ that turned out to be a Renaissance masterpiece

‘Certain works of art vibrate with us’ — artist Hugo Wilson on his debt to the Old Masters

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Ruff guess: can the clothes worn by the sitter for this Rubens portrait tell us who she is?

From the archives: how the tiny figures known as staffage bring Old Master paintings to life

Why jewels by the designer known as JAR are among the most coveted in the world

From beards and blemishes to ringlets and wrinkles: how to read a Roman portrait’s face

Editor’s picks

George Nakashima believed that wood furniture should be created with minimal alteration to the material’s original form. Cracks, holes, knots and other natural features reveal ‘the soul of the tree’. This rare Free-Edge Low Table, 45 cm high and just over 2 metres wide, was crafted from English oak in 1966

Estimate: $80,000-120,000
until 31 July, Online

Stephen Scott Young is best known for his watercolours and etchings of everyday life in The Bahamas. Sienna Scarf was executed in 2010. ‘This is Nicki. I truly love her profile, so dignified’ the artist has written on the back of the work

Estimate: $30,000-50,000
until 7 Aug, Online

In 1965 the Argentine painter Jorge de la Vega arrived in the US to teach at Cornell University. ‘The North American world is so potent and artificial that the human being stands out more against it,’ he observed. Within months of returning home, he painted Untitled, a Pop art critique of America’s consumer culture

Estimate: $200,000-300,000
30 July, New York

Although Ludlow Castle was constructed as a stronghold to protect England’s border with Wales, this Turner watercolour casts it in a romantic light, shimmering over the river like a mirage. When the artist painted it in 1829-30, he sacrificed veracity for effect: the Italianate stone pine was later described as ‘an unlikely sight in Shropshire’

Estimate: £300,000-500,000
29 July, London

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Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen 1577-1640 Antwerp), Portrait of a Young Woman, Half-Length, Holding a Chain, c. 1603-06 (detail). Estimate: £4,000,000-6,000,000. Offered in Classic Art Evening Sale: Antiquity to 20th Century on 29 July 2020 at Christie’s in London // Gaspar van Wittel, called Vanvitelli (1652/1653-1736), Riviera di Chiaia, Naples. Estimate: £180,000-220,000. Offered in Classic Art Evening Sale: Antiquity to 20th Century on 29 July 2020 at Christie’s in London