A quartet of paintings by Italian female old masters—all newly rediscovered—arriving at auction at Dorothy in Vienna.
Headliner of the peloton on May 3 »Old paintings“the sale is a work of Artemisia Gentileschipainted with his studio assistant Onofrio Palumbowhich is expected to fetch between €150,000 and €200,000 ($160,000 – $220,000).
The last time the work, titled Abraham and the three angelsarrived on the market, it was presented as a Bernardo Cavallino painting at Artemisia in Paris in 2014. It was purchased in, according to the Artnet Price Databasebut Dorotheum’s provenance records for the painting show that he found a buyer through the auction house after the sale.
Cavallino is an important name in its own right, with a $3.9 million sale at Sotheby’s New York in January, breaking an auction record that stood at $1.9 million for 34 years. But with growing market interest in female historical artists, repurposing the canvas could spark new interest in the work.
“Artemisia is an artist who is much more in the consciousness of art historians at the moment,” Dorotheum scholar Mark MacDonnell told Artnet News.
“His personal story was disturbing, let’s say, 19th century taste,” he added, alluding to the artist’s rape by his art teacher and subsequent torture during the trial. “Therefore, his works were often given to male artists who worked in the same field. His authorship was somehow lost for political reasons. These were deliberate attribution errors.
It was art historian Giuseppe Porzio who first proposed the new attribution, pointing to stylistic similarities with other known works by Gentileschi, as well as a written record of payment to the artist in 1645. for a large painting depicting Abraham who is otherwise missing.
Close examination of the painting suggests the hand of not one but two artists, indicating that it was a collaboration with Palumbo, one of his known studio assistants.
“He’s probably responsible for one of the angels and some of the background,” MacDonnell said. “This kind of two-handed composition by two artists was a common practice. We tend to attribute paintings to single artists, but often they work with collaborators. »
Gentileschi’s record was set at €4.8 million ($5.3 million) at Artcurial in 2019. (The painting, Lucretiuswas acquired speak Getty Museum in Los Angeles.) The first one artist’s eight million dollar auctions come in 2014with seven since since 2017 including one at Dorotheum.
Artemisia Gentileschi, Lucretius. Courtesy of Dorotheum.
Nevertheless, the auction house seems to have erred in over-conservative estimates for its upcoming sale of Old Masters Women.
The Milanese Renaissance artist Fede Galiziafor example, set a auction record of $2.4 million for his still life A glass compote with peaches, jasmine flowers, quinces and a grasshopperWho sold in 2019 at Sotheby’s New York.
Dorotheum set lower expectations, at just €200,000 to €300,000 ($220,000 to $330,000), for her Judith with the head of Holoferneseven if the unpublished painting is signed, a rarity for a female artist of the time.
Fede Galizia Glass compote with peaches, jasmine flowers, quinces and grasshopper. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
One factor taken into account by the auction house is that Galizia is known more for her still lifes than for her portraits or religious scenes. (Although another painting Judith and Holofernes by the artist is in the collection of Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota.)
“There was nothing comparable on the market, so it’s a very conservative estimate,” MacDonnell said. “He is in incredible condition. It comes from a collection where it has not been seen for many years, and it was unreleased. And the fact that it’s signed is really quite unusual. It therefore has all the ingredients to arouse interest at auction.
He compared Galizia’s take on the well-known subject to Gentileschi’s history paintings in that both artists chose Judith as the protagonist, rather than centering the composition on Holofernes.
“It’s definitely about her, the heroism, the strength of the woman,” MacDonnell said. “You could say it’s a very feminine take on the subject.”
Fede Galizia, Judith with the head of Holofernes. Courtesy of Dorotheum.
Another religious composition by a female artist best known for her still lifes in the sale is Saint Catherine of Alexandria by the mannerist painter Orsola Maddalena Caccia. Trained by their father, Guglielmo “the Moncalvo” CacciaOrsola and her sister became nuns and established a successful workshop in their convent.
The artist caused a sensation at auction in 2020, when his Still life of birds including a marsh tit, warbler, chaffinch, blue tits, golden roost, lapwing and great tit sold more than 1,300% above its high estimate at Sotheby’s London, setting its auction record at £212,500 ($262,378). (THE Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as recently acquired a pair of his paintings.)
A low estimate for the next Dorotheum sale could produce similar fireworks: the work, newly added to Caccia’s oeuvre thanks to art historian Alberto Cottino, is expected to sell for between €20,000 and €30. €000 ($22,000–$33,000).
Orsola Maddalena Caccia, Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Courtesy of Dorotheum.
The fourth female Old Master included in the auction is perhaps the least known, the 17th-century Neapolitan painter Diana DeRosa, also known as Annella di Massimo. The artist has only had seven works auctioned, according to the Artnet price database, and all of them at Dorotheum in the past five years.
Many of these paintings were previously attributed to Giovan Francesco “Pacecco” De Rosa, who was probably his brother. Based on stylistic similarities with known paintings by the artist, art historian Riccardo Lattuada worked to expand de Rosa’s body of work.
THE Saint Cecilia the painting in the upcoming sale had previously only been identified as the work of a “17th-century Neapolitan master” during a 2000 exhibition at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome.
“When these paintings are rediscovered, sometimes they hide in plain sight and they’ve just been misattributed,” MacDonnell said, adding that, like Gentileschi, De Rosa may have fallen out of favor for reasons unrelated to his talent.
Diana De Rosa, known as Annella di Massimo, Saint Cecilia. Courtesy of Dorotheum.
“Diana De Rosa is documented as having a dramatic personal history,” he explained. “Some sources say she was murdered by her husband. We don’t know if this is fact or just romantic fiction. But she was certainly unusual in being a woman. successful painter at that time.
Dorotheum has put the presale estimate on Saint Cecilia between €30,000 and €40,000 ($33,000 to $44,000) – but De Rosa’s work has already sold for up to €165,500 ($190,646), reflecting the growing demand for work by women even previously obscure Old Masters.
“Any work by a seventeenth-century woman painter is interesting, simply because it is so rare. And those kinds of paintings are increasingly important, in part because of issues of gender representation,” MacDonnell said. “Public collections are interested in purchasing these works only to correct imbalances within their collections.”
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