NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Old Masters paintings brought in more than $120 million at auction sales this week, with several works selling for more than $5 million each and records set for some artists.
The top price in several days of sales at Christie's and Sotheby's was $5.9 million for Giambattista Tiepolo's "The Arrival of Henry VIII at the Villa Contarini" at Christie's, an auction record that was just under the work's high estimate.
Christie's sold $51.8 million worth of art including commission, up $21 million from its sales a year ago. But the total fell more than $15 million shy of the $67.7 million achieved at Sotheby's, which totaled more than $62 million on Thursday alone.
"The Old Masters paintings sales saw success across a wide variety of genres, including 18th century Italian views, the Dutch golden age, Flemish Baroque, as well as French Rococo," said Nicholas Hall, Christie's co-chair of Old Masters and 19th century art.
Frans Hals' "Portrait of a Gentleman, half length, in a black coat" which was sold from the collection of late Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor fetched $2.1 million, or more than twice the pre-sale estimate at Christie's.
The work hung in Taylor's bedroom in her Bel Air home, and was the actress's only Old Masters work, the auction house said.
At Sotheby's, Canaletto's "A View of the Churches of the Redentore and San Giacomo," sold for just under $5.7 million, toward the low end of its pre-sale estimate range. The work was from the collection of Britain's Lady Forte, whose husband founded the hotel and restaurant chain Trusthouse Forte.
Fra Bartolommeo's "Saint Jerome in the Wilderness" soared to nearly $4.9 million, or more than three times the estimate, setting an artist's record.
Botticelli's "Madonna and Child with the Young Baptist" fetched $4.5 million, about four times the estimate.
Sotheby's said the sale demonstrated that works of high quality continue to bring exceptional prices such as the top 10 works on Wednesday which each sold for more than $2 million.
"In the days before the sale we saw broad geographical interest in our exhibition, which translated to bidding from Europe, North and South America, and Asia," George Wachter, co-chair of Old Master paintings and Christopher Apostle, head of Sotheby's Old Master paintings in New York, added in a statement.
The sales were marked by institutional buying.
Washington's National Gallery of Art bought Thomas de Keyser's "Portrait of a gentleman," for $1.5 million, setting an artist's record, while California's J. Paul Getty museum purchased the Italian Renaissance "Portrait of a Young Man" attributed to Piero del Pollaiuolo for $1.4 million, many times the $400,000 high estimate.
One of the oldest works on offer, the very rare "The Virgin Annunciate" by Simone Martini from the early 1300s, broke the artist's record when it sold for just over its $4 million high estimate at Sotheby's.
But several expected highlights failed to sell, including Hans Memling's "The Virgin Nursing the Christ Child," which had been estimated to sell for up to $8 million at Christie's.
(Editing by Chris Michaud; editing by Patricia Reaney)
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