Old Master Painting’s week in New York is held from 25-30
January. Here the luminary auction
houses and dealers pull out their best kit in order to dazzle the world. Sotheby’s in particular, has an exciting
sale.
I love Italian painting from the 18th century - a time when
tourists flocked to Rome, Florence and Venice as part of their “educational”
Grand Tour, much like college graduates do today. Unlike them though, many a British lord came
home with a Canaletto view of the Grand Canal in Venice as a reminder of his
time on the Continent. Others brought
home more exotic souvenirs, like this marvelous painting by Pietro Longhi
(1702-1785).
A group of Venetian revelers have come to see what must have
indeed been quite the sight in Europe at the time … an Indian elephant. I can’t even think of a remotely similar experience
today. I guess perhaps a captured
martian? Anyhoo, this was such an event
in 1774, that the artist was actually contracted to paint 4 different versions
with different groups of spectators (presumably those in the party of the
commissioning patron).
Known for scenes of a Venetian life filled with parties,
gambling and womanizing, Longhi also completed a number of similar commissions
commemorating other equally jaw-dropping visits to Venice: a rhinoceros in 1751
and a lion in 1762.
Unlike suffering saints in contorted poses or naked nymphs
frolicking al fresco, this is the
type of Old Master painting that is easily collectable these days because even
though the subject is a non-event for us, we can still identify with that feeling
of awe in discovering something for the first time.
image credit: Sotheby’s, New York. Important Old Master Paintings, lot 78,
Pietro Longhi, The Elephant, oil on canvas.
Estimate US$ 700,000 – 900,000. To be sold on 31 January 2013. The
entire sale is open to the public from 25-30 January 2013.
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