Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Battle Between Carnival and Lent. Oil on oak panel. Estimate: £4-6 million / €4.9-7.4 million / $6.4-9.6 million. Photo: Sotheby's.
Sotheby’s London will present an outstanding selection of rare and important masterpieces in its Old Master and British Paintings Evening Sale on July 4th 2012. The sale will, notably, feature no less than three large paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, led by the monumental Battle between Carnival and Lent, one of his most accomplished works. Other highlights include two early 16th century masterpieces of the German Renaissance – Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Feilitzsch Altarpiece and Hans Baldung Grien’s jewel-like Virgin as Queen of Heaven – as well as Guido Reni’s monumental David with the Head of Goliath. The sale comprises 44 works with a combined estimate in excess of £26 million.
Alex Bell, Sotheby’s Co-Chairman and Head of Old Master Paintings Worldwide commented: “This is a particularly rich and varied sale, offering collectors the opportunity to acquire some extraordinarily rare works. Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Feilitzsch Altarpiece is the last intact multi-panelled altarpiece by Cranach left in private ownership and comes to auction with a sparkling provenance we can trace back to its commission in 1511. The sale features some superb works from the Dutch Golden Age, a spectacular pair of Venetian vedute by Francesco Guardi which have been unseen for over a century and Guido Reni’s David with the head of Goliath, acquired directly from the artist in 1633 by the Duke of Modena.”
Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s The Battle Between Carnival and Lent, estimated at £4-6 million, is the artist’s most accomplished work to come to the market in recent memory. Depicting one of the greatest Breughelian themes, the work is a semi encyclopaedic exploration of the folklore and customs associated with the Shrovetide festival and the contrasts and contradictions of human nature. The composition is derived from the celebrated painting of 1559 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. This is the finest of five versions of the subject by Brueghel the Younger but the exceptional state of preservation of this early painting on panel, singles it out as the finest.
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