«young woman seated at the virginal» fetches over £16m!
a small picture of a pudgy-fingered young woman in a lumpily-painted yellow shawl (one that for decades has been suspected of being fake) sold for £16.2m (ca. us$30m) at a sotheby's auction last night, a record price for the artist - although since the last vermeer to be auctioned was more than eighty years ago, and there is never likely to be another, a record was no surprise.
the canvas is small — ten by eight inches — and dates from around 1670. it shows an intimate scene of a young woman seated at a virginal, a type of harpsichord, with her eyes gazing directly at the viewer. it is the last genre scene by this artist in private hands apart from one owned by Queen Elizabeth II. the last vermeer to appear at auction was «the little street» (1658-1660), which was included in a sale in amsterdam in 1921. it failed to sell and was later bought by a collector who donated it to the rijksmuseum.
the winning bid was taken by telephone and while the auction house is not saying who the buyer was, it is believed to be stephen a wynn, a las vegas casino owner.
note that the sale price of the painting includes sotheby's commission: twenty percent of the first us$100,000 and twelve percent of the rest.
Labels: Art
