This intensely striking Christ as Triumphant Redeemer is an important rediscovery from the corpus of the Flemish master Jan Sanders van Hemessen. Until only recently, the picture had been nearly completely over-painted, thus masking the incredibly well preserved original composition lying underneath. The powerful rendition of the painted figure, its monumentality and idiosyncratic color scheme, along with the technical prowess of Christ’s portrayal all point to Hemessen’s work from the mid 1540’s, thus making this a mature and significant picture of the High Renaissance of Flemish painting.

DISCOVERIES & REDISCOVERIES

Vittore Carpaccio
Madonna and Child
Estimate $300/500,000

This charming painting of the Madonna and Child by the great Venetian narrative painter Vittore Carpaccio has been largely unseen for most of the last century, known to scholars almost exclusively through old black and white photographs. The painting was seen firsthand prior to 1928, but otherwise, all art historians who have published the painting have done so based on rudimentary images. Consequently, the picture has remained much discussed in the literature, and only with its reappearance has it been possible to assess this panel as an autograph work by Carpaccio, datable to the 1490s, the decade during which Carpaccio had begun to establish himself as one of the greatest and most original painters of Renaissance Venice.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti
Saint John the Baptist
Estimate $400/600,000

This exquisite roundel depicting Saint John the Baptist, despite being a recent discovery, is unmistakably the work of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, one of the most influential painters of the early 14th-century. While the paintings of the artist’s brother, Pietro, adhered to a more traditional style, Ambrogio continually strove for innovation, looking beyond his native Siena for inspiration. In the wake of Duccio di Buoninsegna, Ambrogio built upon the invention of the older artist, absorbing the advancements of his Florentine contemporaries in naturalism and spatial awareness and incorporate them into Sienese painting.

Paolo Veneziano
Wings of a triptych: interior: Saints Peter, John the Baptist, Paul and a Bishop Saint; exterior: Saint Christopher and the Christ Child, and Saint Anthony Abbot
Estimate $300/400,000

These small panels constitute a highly important discovery and addition to the oeuvre of Paolo Veneziano, the dominant artistic personality of 14th-century Venice, who was almost solely responsible for the transition of Venetian art from its Byzantine roots to its own distinctive Gothic style. Until recently over-painted, over-gilded and joined as one to form a kind of icon, these works have now been returned insofar as possible to their original appearance as part of the wings of a portable triptych. Both sides of the panels exhibit the finesse and intensity of expression - exemplified here in Saint Christopher’s gaze towards the Christ Child - for which Paolo Veneziano is most prized, and defines him as the most important artist in Venice at this time.

STILL LIFES

Pieter Claesz
Still life of lemons and olives, pewter plates, a roemer and a façon-de-Venise wine glass on a ledge
Estimate $700/900,000

The works that Pieter Claesz painted between 1628 and 1630, of which this is an outstanding example, came to define the classical Haarlem ontbijtje (breakfast piece). Their elements are not only very limited, but also biased towards objects such as glassware and silver plates rather than foodstuffs, and their purpose is to balance the composition, rather than to represent a meal.

Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder
A Still Life Of Flowers In A Glass Flask On A Marble Ledge, Flanked By A Red Admiral Butterfly And A Lizard
Estimate $2.5/3.5 million

The sale will also feature a magnificent flower painting by another pioneer in the genre, Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. Bosschaert was wholly responsible for the sudden outburst of flower painting in the Netherlands at the start of the 17th century and this beautifully preserved oil on copper is a very fine example of his early works. Signed and dated to 1607, this work is little known, having never been publicly exhibited, and only resurfacing to the market in 1965.

Luis Meléndez
Still life with a plate of azaroles, fruit, mushrooms, cheese and receptacles
Estimate $1.5/2 million

This outstanding work by one of the greatest still-life painters of the eighteenth century, Luis Meléndez, is a variant of a picture today in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, that formed part of the celebrated series of some 44 still lifes commissioned by the Prince of Asturias, the future Charles IV, for his History Cabinet in the Escorial. The painting continues the rich still-life tradition of the Spanish Golden Age developed by the likes of Juan Sánchez Cotán and Francisco de Zurbarán, yet at the same time is imbued with a sense of modernity through the highly realistic treatment of the objects themselves that reflects the prevailing spirit of the Age of Enlightenment.

HUMAN RELFECTIONS: PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE COLLECTION