Sunday, March 25, 2018

Heads-up: "Rubens portrait begins world tour in Dubai as auctioneer hopes to tap into Middle Eastern Old Master demand"

The Old Masters trade is pretty much moribund as so many of the pics are in museums and don't come on the market, more after the jump.

From Antiques Trade Gazette

Sotheby’s has chosen Dubai to unveil a Rubens painting it plans to offer later this summer in a bid to tap into the hoped-for demand for Old Master paintings in the Middle East.
https://cdn.antiquestradegazette.com/media/26406/rubens-dubai-2335nedi.jpg#_ga=2.267480008.772242361.1521984818-1169967699.1521258581
An oil on oak panel by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) called 'Portrait of a bearded Venetian nobleman'. 
Measuring 2ft x 19in (60 x 48.5cm), it carries an estimate in the region of £3m and will be offered at auction in London at Sotheby’s in July. 
The move follows the purchase by the Abu Dhabi government for the Louvre Abu Dhabi of Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi painting. It was sold at Christie's Contemporary art sale in New York in November 2017.

The Rubens will also be part of a contemporary art preview when it is unveiled in Dubai.
Edward Gibbs, Sotheby’s Middle East and India chairman, said: “Celebrating our first anniversary, and coinciding with Art Dubai, this month Sotheby’s will be offering a special preview for our fast-growing audience of Emirati collectors and art lovers.”

The Rubens picture, carrying an estimate in the region of £3m, will begin its world tour in Dubai from March 20-24 and will be flown around the world before it is offered at auction in London at Sotheby’s Old Masters sale on July 4.

"Prince of the painters"
Painted in the 1620s, at the height of Rubens’ career, this depiction of a Venetian nobleman is believed to have been kept by Rubens (1577-1640) until his death....MORE
As noted in September 2015's ""Dutch Government & Rijksmuseum in Talks to Acquire Rothschild Rembrandts for €160m"":
You don't see the Dutch Masters trade very often.
Like Seaboard Corp., by appointment only.
I'm so crass. But then so were Rembrandt's patrons.
SEB $3250.00, down $50 last on 248 shares....
Before that it was 2013's "Big Dollar Art: For Fervent Fans of the Dutch Masters, ‘It’s a Dream Come True’".
If one is really Jonesing for a fix there's always "Oh Yeah, The Rijksmuseum Reopened: The Nightwatch Flash Mob, also 2013":

...It took ten years of screw-ups but the museum finally reopened and although most folks in Amsterdam seem to hate the building they like what's inside and most any Dutch kid knows Rembrandt's The Nightwatch:


So the flashmob went off to greater effect than it might have done, say, in Chicago where they have a very different kind of flash mob.
Here's the version uploaded by ING: