A portrait painted by Botticelli about 540 years ago sold for more than $ 92 million Thursday at auction at New York’s Sotheby’s headquarters, setting a new record price for a Renaissance artist’s work and easily surpassing 80 millions provided by experts.
It was the first time the painting “The Young Man Holding a Medallion” had been put up for auction since 1982, and only the fourth time it had been sold in 200 years, according to Sotheby’s.
“The last time it was launched was in 1982. Before it was in a private collection from the beginning of the 20th century and before, in another collection from the end of the 18th century, we believe. Apostle, the New York director of Sotheby’s Grand Masters, told EFE.
The auction house described the work as “one of the best Renaissance pieces ever auctioned” for several factors, including its exceptional condition, despite its more than 5 centuries of antiquity and the fact that it is one of only three portraits of it. Botticelli who remain in private hands.
“In the 30 years of my professional career, I have never had a Botticelli that came close to its quality, condition, beauty and importance,” said the Apostle.
The piece, sold in a week of auctions that Sotheby’s dedicates to the great masters of art history, reached an exorbitant figure after just over 4 minutes of fighting between several buyers who auctioned by phone through company representatives present in New York and London offices.
From the initial price of $ 70 million, it took less than 60 seconds to reach the price of $ 80 million offered by a London-based telephone buyer, a figure that rose to 92,184 .000 dollars after the addition of taxes and duties.
Thus, “The young man who owns a medallion” pulverizes the previous maximum price of a Botticelli work, being nine times higher than the 10.5 million that were paid in 2018 for “Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist”.
In addition, it ranks as the second most expensive portrait painted by one of the great masters (painters of Europe before 1800) in history, just behind Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi,” which sold for $ 450.3 million. in 2017.
Before being sold, the work traveled to several cities around the world, including London, Dubai and Los Angeles, before reaching New York, a tour in which it aroused enormous expectations, especially in the British capital and the metropolis. United Arab Emirates. ., where in one day about 300 people went to the galleries of the auction house to admire it.
Although Botticelli was a very famous artist who painted various members of the Medici family, the great patrons of the Renaissance of Florence, very few of his portraits have survived the passage of time, and most of them are exhibited in museums.
In 1982, the piece sold for about £ 810,000 (about $ 1.1 million at today’s exchange rate), but this time experts valued it before the auction at $ 80 million compared to other masterpieces released, such as those of Francis Bacon or Picasso.
Sotheby’s also highlighted Botticelli’s relevance in art history and recalled that he is responsible for some of the most iconic pieces, such as “Spring” and “The Birth of Venus.”
“Sandro Botticelli is indeed the quintessential artist of the Florentine Renaissance. Before Michelangelo and before Leonardo da Vinci was Botticelli,” the apostle stressed.
It is also the second painting to exceed $ 80 million at a Sotheby’s auction, as the house was forced to start selling digitally to the largest bidder due to the pandemic in June last year, when 84 million were paid. dollars for “Bacchus inspired by Orestesia of Eschylus” by Francis Bacon.
At Thursday’s auction, collectors were also eagerly awaiting the sale of the small but masterful painting “Abraham and the Angels,” a $ 20 million and 30-million-dollar work by Rembrandt that is one of only five Dutch biblical paintings. in private hands.
However, the piece was withdrawn from auction shortly before the sale.