Christie’s landmark Rothschild Masterpieces auction series — the first of its kind in North America — finished in triumphant style, totaling $62,656,516 and illustrating the continued global appeal of ‘le Goût Rothschild’ along the way. The series continues in Paris this Classics Week featuring seven sales, from 2–22 November, each containing lots from the Rothschild family, spanning the French, English and German branches.
Leading the sale with its nimble brushwork and keen domestic observation, Gerrit Dou’s A young woman holding a hare with a boy at a window fetched $7,068,000. Other top lots include the Dutch School’s The Triumph of David, a monumental series of painted and embossed leather panels from the Dutch School era, which realised $4,406,000.
A pair of late Louis XV gilt walnut fauteuils a la reine, constructed by Louis Delanois, set a record for 18th-century European chairs when it sold for $4,406,000, only to have its own record broken shortly thereafter when another Delanois pair of late Louis XV giltwood and white-painted fauteuils — supplied to Madame Du Barry for Château de Louveciennes — sold for $6,221,000, the second-highest price ever for European chairs of any era.
The sale also demonstrated an enthusiasm for decorative arts on both sides of the Atlantic: a rare Dutch silver-gilt mounted nautilus cup, bearing the mark of Cornelis Jansz van der Burch, sold for $1,502,000 and was acquired by The Cleveland Museum, while a record-breaking sale for an Hispano-moresque earthenware blue and lustred armorial charger achieved $1,033,200.
