New York Old Masters Sales Set Records for Michelangelo and Rembrandt

Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, art news Newsletter about the art market and beyond. Register here Receive it every Wednesday.

As crowds packed Sotheby’s new Madison Avenue headquarters Thursday morning for an Old Masters sale, auctioneer David Pollack made an unusual announcement. The most expensive work at auction so far is a two-panel painting by Italian Antonello da Messina, priced at $15 million (Eche people on the one hand, Confession of Saint Jerome On the other hand), will not be sold – not because it has been withdrawn due to lack of interest, which is the typical reason for such removals, but because it has been sold privately to a public agency.

“It’s a fine piece,” added Pollack, head of Sotheby’s Old Masters New York department. “You will all be happy.”

Standing just 8 inches tall and guaranteed by an irrevocable bid, the work has been exhibited at institutions including the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The artist’s previous auction records are extremely slim, with only one signed work appearing in Artnet’s price database, also a small double-sided painting, which sold for £251,650 ($409,850) at Christie’s in London in 2003. On Monday, the auction house announced that Italy’s Ministry of Culture had acquired the painting, paying $14.9 million.

Tom Davies, director of London’s Daniel Katz Gallery, said it “softened the blow” art news As the sale unfolded, we knew the piece would be acquired by an institution rather than a competitor. The sale was part of New York’s Old Masters Week, with important sales at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s, and he said of the sale, “The results were strong, the bidding was fierce, the number of visitors was very good, and there are a lot of museums circulating, which is good for the field.” This week coincides with Art Basel in Qatar, which set records for Artemisia Gentileschi and Michelangelo. Rembrandt van Rijn’s most expensive painting was also auctioned.

“It may not have been a week full of masterpieces, but the overall level was pretty good,” Davis said. He said he had unsuccessfully bid on a piece or two, but observed, “As a dealer, you have to occasionally accept that the person who outbids you is probably your client anyway.”

Dutch Old Master dealer Salomon Lilian put it more succinctly: “The Old Masters are back!”

Exceeded expectations set by modest estimates

Last week’s auction in New York followed a high-profile event seven months ago that fell far short of expectations, when the collection of the late banker Thomas A. Saunders III and his wife, Jordan, went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London. This work is known as the most valuable Old Master collection in the history of auctions, with an estimate of US$120 million, but the final total transaction volume was only US$64.7 million, with a sell-through rate as low as 58.5%. (To be fair, the sale set new highs for Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Luis Meléndez and Frans Post, one dealer told us art news At the time the brand was achieving “very strong results”. )

Experts said last week that the comparison revealed the importance of reasonable estimates.

“The Saunders sale is completely overvalued,” said Hugo Nathan, a London-based consultant at Beaumont Nathan. “It’s that simple.”

As for last week, New York consultant Jacob King observed, “They’re pushing estimates very low across the board, so things are still selling for less than they have in the past.” Still, he described the auctions, particularly those at Sotheby’s, as “particularly strong.”

Sotheby’s has achieved some newsworthy results. Drawings from the estate of New York travel agent Diane A. Nixon were delivered to the neighborhood on Wednesday. The auction achieved a 95% sell-out rate, surpassing the high estimate of $7.7 million, reaching $10.8 million, and setting a Carel Fabritius record. Also on Wednesday, Master Drawings sales totaled $19.8 million, below expectations and the highest different owner sales total in the home’s history, with 83% sold and 47% of the works exceeding expectations. The next day, a white-glove auction was held for the estate of New York real estate tycoon Lester L. Weindling. Wendeling fled Hitler’s Germany and until his death in 2024, his collection of 17th-century Dutch art remained largely out of the public eye. The auction price was in line with estimates, totaling $16.8 million. Also on Thursday, a different-owner auction sold for $27.9 million against a high estimate of $22.5 million, with 85 percent of the works sold in lots and 56 percent of the works selling above their high estimates. Jean-Honoré Fragonard Head of a bearded man (circa 1770) far exceeded its high estimate of $800,000 and sold for $2.7 million.

The star of the week at Sotheby’s is a painting by Rembrandt; young lion resting (c. 1638-42), sold for $17.9 million, breaking the Dutch record of $3.7 million for a work on paper at Christie’s New York in 2000. The work is collected by Thomas S. Kaplan, his wife Daphne Recanati Kaplan and Florida philanthropist Jon Ayers. Proceeds will be donated to Panthera, a charity dedicated to protecting the world’s 40 species of wild cats, founded by the Kaplans and the late Alan Rabinowitz. If there’s anything that dampens the good news, it’s that the piece is estimated to be worth $20 million. But its price is lower than that, at $15 million.

Christie’s auction house also had some notable results, with sales totaling about $100 million this week. A spokesman said the sale of Old Master paintings was the auction house’s strongest sale in New York in 10 years, while the sale of paintings was one of the largest in Christie’s history.

There were two bright spots at Wednesday’s Old Masters auction, which brought in a total of $54.1 million, below the presale estimate of $45 million to $64 million, with an impressive 84 percent of the works finding buyers.

A painting by Canaletto titled Venice, Bucintoro on Ascension Day in Moro (c. 1754), The work met expectations and sold for $30.5 million, making it the artist’s third best-selling work at auction. It last appeared at auction at Christie’s in London in 2005, where it sold for $20.1 million, nearly double its high estimate (until last week, it was his third-highest price). This painting comes with a third party guarantee. The artist’s record still stands at $43.8 million, set last year by another painting of the same subject at Christie’s in London.

Artemisia Gentileschi Self-portrait as Saint Catherine (c. 1613-1620), meanwhile, set a new world record for the artist, more than doubling its low estimate of $2.5 million, selling for $5.7 million. Her previous high was €4.8 million ($5.3 million) for an artist at Artcurial in 2019 Lucreceshattering its high estimate of €800,000 ($880,300). That same day, the National Gallery of Art in Washington made headlines by announcing her work. Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy (c. 1625) has entered its collection.

Crossover collectors and Michelangelo records discovered online

It’s widely discussed that contemporary artists often collect Old Masters, and here you can buy high-quality works for far less than buyers would typically pay for works by living figures. In fact, New York artist and Pioneer Works co-founder Dustin Yellin was one of the only people standing at Sotheby’s on Thursday. He didn’t bid, but he had been looking at the work in the gallery and happened to see his first auction going on, so maybe he would have caught the mistake.

New York consultant Laura Paulson was also on hand. She was particularly impressed by Yue. A collection of 1,500 Flemish tapestries from the collection of Chicago philanthropists Cindy and Jay Pritzker was valued at as much as $500,000 but sold for $1.9 million after a 10-minute battle. (Family treasures of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse and others arrived on the block in the fall.) The piece, approximately 11 feet tall, showcases Thousands of flowers (“Thousand Flowers”) pattern and unicorn, reminiscent of the famous tapestries of the New York Abbey. It has real contemporary appeal, Paulson said, noting that it was owned by a collector known for buying new art. (The company declined to confirm the buyer’s identity or typical concerns.)

You never know where a valuable piece may turn up, as Christie’s reminded us this week. In March 2025, the home received a photo of chalk-painted feet through its online portal to request an estimate. It turns out that this is a study of Sybil’s feet that Michelangelo painted for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Estimated at $1.5 million to $2 million, the work sparked an unprecedented 45-minute bidding war in the Rockefeller Center auction room on Thursday, ultimately selling for nearly 20 times its low estimate for $27.2 million, an artist record. The auction house said it is one of only about 10 paintings by the Renaissance master in private collections and the only undocumented ceiling study in the block to date. The artist’s previous high was $24.3 million for another painting at Christie’s Paris in 2022.

Giada Damen, an expert in identifying Michelangelo paintings from online submissions, said in a statement that the sale was one of the most successful sales of Old Master paintings in the auction house’s 260-year history. “What an incredible day and the highlight of my career,” Damen said. “As someone who truly loves and appreciates Old Master paintings, it was exciting to have multiple bidders on the phone, in the room, and online, all realizing the rarity and significance of this extraordinary object and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity it presented. I was honored to be a part of it.”

For Hugo Nathan of London consultancy Beaumont Nathan, the Michelangelo sale was instructive compared to Rembrandt’s lion painting, which is guaranteed to sell and may take away some of the potential excitement; there were only two bidders vying for the piece. Regarding Michelangelo, he said: “I was one of three bidders for over $20 million, with an estimate of $1.5 million to $2 million! That’s the magic of the old masters. The element of luck and unpredictability makes it a very interesting market.”

2024, art newsGeorge Nelson writes that auctioneers are working hard to attract new collectors into the category, and in Nathan’s opinion this week has been successful in that regard. In fact, at the Sotheby’s auction, which set a record for Rembrandt, the auction house said 15% of the buyers were in their 30s and nearly 20% of the bidders were new to the auction house.

“We predict that people from more modern markets will look back and be interested,” Nathan said. “There’s enough museum-quality stuff in these sales to get those people excited, and I think there’s more activity for the Early Masters from newcomers to seasoned collectors.”

For him, finding museum-quality pieces remains a challenge. The kind of material that legendary art dealer Joseph Duveen sold to robber barons like the Fricks, Morgans and Rockefellers was hard to find, he said, “because generations of American collectors had given something to museums, and the museums themselves were prolific buyers. There were plenty of people in the market who could afford a Vermeer or a Raphael—if there was one. There were three people who were happy to pay more than $20 million for a Michelangelo.”

Distributors are tasked today with “re-aligning flavors with existing products,” he said.