An anonymous buyer pays 15 million euros for the only female double portrait of the genius from Fuendetodos | Painted in 1805 when the artist was an adult, it had been in private hands since 1951
The art market, which is alive and well despite pandemics and financial crises, has just set a new auction record for a work by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828). For “Portrait of Mrs. María Vicenta Barruso Valdés, Sitting on a Couch with a Lap Dog” and “Portrait of Her Mother Mrs. Leonora Antonia Valdés de Barruso, Sitting on a Chair with a Fan,” awarded at Christie’s in New York early Thursday.
Painted in 1805, measuring 105 by 84 centimeters, the unusual duo was the only female double portrait painted by the genius of Fuendetodos and one of the few double portraits of the Aragonese to remain in private hands, according to Christie’s on its website. They were bought in 1951, the last time they went on sale, so they hadn’t been on the market for over seventy years.
With an estimated price of between $15 and $20 million, the female couple was one of the top pieces of the Old Masters auction, although it remained in the lower part of the estimate, as did most of the 36 works sold in total. sold. of 49 lots, including works by Turner, Brueghel, Canaletto, Rubens or Murillo.
The previous record for a ‘goya’ at auction dates back to 1992, when the Getty Museum bought ‘Suerte de varas’ for $7.7 million from Sotheby’s in London. A price that, applied inflation, would exceed 15 million. In 2008, Christie’s in London also auctioned three fantastic sketches from the painter’s private notebooks that had been lost for 130 years. The combined price of the three originals was almost 8 million, with the most expensive selling for 4.5 million.
Think of the auction house whose oil paintings were on display in the Museo del Prado in 2008, in the exhibition ‘Goya and war’. Its “exceptional” state of conservation is notable, “providing an excellent opportunity to study Goya’s technique.”
Goya painted them at a crucial moment in his career, when he was almost 60 years old and at the beginning of a period of complete artistic freedom to which he surrendered when he left court. It was one of the first portraits he produced as the rising bourgeoisie began to compete for his services, at a time of radical change for the country and for the artist, who produced some of his most famous works at the time.
Commissioned in 1805 by Salvador Anselmo Barruso de Ybaretta, husband of doña Leonora and father of María Vicenta Barruso Valdés, the fabrics were inherited by his grandson, Salvador Valdés y Barruso. They remained in the Barruso family until Stanislas O’Rossen (1864-1933), named Pierre Orossen, a French couturier and avid Goya collector, acquired them around 1905, probably in Madrid. Sold in 1951 by the family who owns them and just auctioned them off.
Source: La Verdad
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