‘Rembrandt to Richter’: Unveiling over 70 works showcasing 500 years of art history at Sotheby's London

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This summer, Sotheby’s #london will present a one-off auction and exhibition that spans over half a millennium of art history. From #rembrandt, ‘the first modern painter’, to Richter, who has earned his position as one of today’s greatest contemporary painters by reinterpreting the masterpieces of his forefathers, the sale will offer the very best from Old Masters, Impressionist & Modern Art, Modern & Post-War British Art and Contemporary Art – travelling through the Italian Renaissance and the Dutch Golden Age, to the revolutionary birth of Modernism, and the invasion of Pop Art and Post-modern Abstraction.  

The exhibition opens to the public in Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries today, with many of the works on view for the first time in decades. They will be hung in such a way as to illuminate the often-unexpected connections between artists and periods, shining a spotlight on the various threads that run through Western art history.

The Evening Sale will take place at 6pm BST on 28 July, offering over seventy works. Among the star lots are works by Joan Miró (est. £20-30 million / $25-37.5 million), #francisbacon (est. £12-18 million / $15-22.5 million), #henrimatisse (est. £8-12 million / $10-15 million), #rembrandt (est. £12-16 million / $15-20 million), Gerhard Richter (est. £9-12 million / $11.3-15 million), Fernand Léger (est. £8-12 million / $10-15 million), Pablo Picasso (est. £6-9 million / $7.5-11.3 million), David Hockney (est. £4-6 million / $5-7.5 million) and Alberto Giacometti (est. £4-6 million / $5-7.5 million). Almost two-thirds of the art in the sale has never been at auction before, and of the lots that have appeared in the past, some 70% have been off the market for two decades. 

“This auction brings together spectacular works by some of the greatest names in art history – artists who rewrote the rule book – and, with the global art world calendar having shifted, we too have seized the opportunity to do things differently. As a new generation of collectors show less concern with the traditional art market categories of the past, this is a sale without boundaries for those collectors who look for the best of the best, regardless of where or when the artworks were made. Following the success of our recent New York auction in June, live-streamed in real-time across the world, and strong success in Hong Kong last week, we are excited now to be presenting another great offering to the world’s hungry market in #london.”  Helena Newman, Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe 

Joan Miró, Peinture (Femme au chapeau rouge), 1927, oil on canvas (est. £20-30 million)

In the mid-1920s Miró’s art underwent a complete transformation. The artist invented a lyrical abstract language of signs, opening up a new path for his contemporaries and generations of artists to follow. Painted in 1927, the year he mastered this new style, Femme au chapeau rouge ranks highly among his 'dream paintings' – a series at the core of Miró’s legacy. The viewer is immersed in a luminous, deep blue that Miró called “the colour of his dreams”, inspired by days looking up and admiring the sky in Catalonia.

 Unseen for decades, and last at auction in 1966, it is the first work of this importance to appear at auction since Peinture (Étoile bleue) set the record for the artist in 2012. Testament to its special place in Miró’s oeuvre the work was once in the collection of fellow artist Alexander Calder, who was not only great friends with the artist, but also inspired by him throughout his life, and there is a striking visual resonance with Calder’s mobiles in the work. 

Bridget Riley, Cool Edge, 1982, oil on linen (est. £800,000-1.2 million / $1-1.5 million)

Leading British artist and subject of a recent critically acclaimed retrospective at London’s Hayward Gallery, Bridget Riley embarked on this celebrated series after visiting Egypt in 1979. One of the finest examples of the artist’s stripe paintings from the 1980s, Cool Edge bears the hallmark hues of the artist’s ‘Egyptian palette’ – violet, aquamarine, coral and yellow – colours based on ancient Egyptian tomb paintings and local landscapes. The work equally draws from a childhood spent on the Cornish Coast, the title recalling the cool undulating waves of the sea on a summer’s day

Fernand Léger, Nature Morte, 1914, oil on burlap (est. £8-12 million / $10-15 million)

Working in Paris in the context of Picasso and Braque’s revolutionary development of Cubism, Léger developed his own unique and radical style, which integrated colour and abstracted forms. Composed of boldly outlined, overlapping shapes and coloured with strong tones, these works represent the artist’s ultimate Cubist vision. This dynamic example has never been at auction and has remained unseen since it was last exhibited in 1983, two years after it was acquired.

This work forms part of a treasure-trove from a private collection – little known and rarely seen – spanning the remarkable first decades of the twentieth century, telling the story through the leading protagonists, from Léger, Pablo Picasso (see page 3) and Alberto Giacometti to Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger and Alexej von Jawlensky. 

Marlow Moss, White, Black and Red, 1950 (est. £70,000-100,000 / $87,500-125,000)  

A disciple and friend of Mondrian, Moss worked in Paris in the 1920s when few other British artists were. She became the only female Neo-Plasticist and soon emerged as a major innovator within the group. This work has never been at auction and is one of very few works by the artist to be offered on the market. Her contribution to abstraction has been left largely under the radar because she left so little work behind.  

The lines are foreshadowed in Vilhelm Hammershøi’s view of the interior courtyard from his Copenhagen apartment (est. £400,000-600,000 / $500,000-750,000), which presents an almost flattened geometrical abstract, and is appearing at auction for the first time in thirty years. 

PORTRAITURE THROUGH THE AGES 

Rembrandt, Self-portrait of the artist, half-length, wearing a ruff and a black hat, 1632, oil on oak panel (est. £12-16 million / $15-20 million)

The sale takes its title from #rembrandt, an artist who has perhaps had the greatest influence on all subsequent painters. Rembrandt’s self-portraits are amongst the most recognisable images in the entire canon of western art and, of the forty-one that survive, this 1632 selfportrait is one of only three remaining in private hands and the only one ever likely to come to market.  

Two works in the sale by Rubens and Frans Hals date to the same ten-year period when #rembrandt painted this self-portrait. Unseen and unconsidered by scholars for over half a century, Frans Hals’ portrait of an unknown gentleman, estimated at £2-3 million / $2.5-3.8 million, is a recently re-discovered work from 1635 (view press release here). The work displays all the virtuosity, and the myriad shades of black, that made Hals such a role model for Manet, Van Gogh and others centuries later. Similarly fresh to the market, Rubens’ portrait of a young woman (est. £2.5-3.5 million / $3.1-4.4 million) has only recently emerged from a private collection, having last been exhibited at the Royal Academy in #london in 1902. It will be one of only a handful of female portraits by the Flemish master to be offered in a generation. 

Further information in the press release to download