On 1 December Harry Smith, Chairman and Managing Director of Gurr Johns was quoted in The Art Newspaper on the Old Master sales in London next week.
Christie’s London, Old Masters evening sale, 7 December
El Greco’s Saint Francis and Brother Leo in Meditation (est £5m-£7m) is one of 51 works from the collection of the late Stanford Rothschild consigned for sale to Christie’s. “The paint surface is gorgeous,” says Harry Smith of art advisers Gurr Johns.“It’s not a unique subject, but he is such a contemporary painter, it might easily sell to Asia.” The painting is a far superior work to the rather flimsy Christ Taking Leave of His Mother, another El Greco that failed to sell in Christie’s July sale with an estimate of £4m to £6m. That work, like Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi, was previously bought from Yves Bouvier by the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.
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