Displaying items by tag: dorotheum

Frans Verbeeck's "The Mocking of Human Follies" (c.1560) was sold at auction last night in Vienna for a staggering £2.3 million. The sum is an all-time record for the artist. It also marks one of the highest selling prices ever achieved at an Austrian auction.

The auction of the masterpiece took place last night at the Viennese headquarters of the Dorotheum's auction house. The Verbeeck painting is said to have caused quite a stir at the auction house's Old Master Paintings sale. According to the Austrian newspaper "The Local," the painting had a presale estimate of between £709,000 to £945,000. It is reported that the work was sold to an unnamed Flemish bidder - after a hard-fought bidding war.

According to Italian art critic and former undersecretary of cultural heritage Vittorio Sgarbi, writing in Corriere della Sera‘s magazine Sette, a painting currently attributed to the followers of 16th-century Florentine painter Giuliano Bugiardini may actually be by Raphael. The portrait of an unknown woman was snapped up by collector Peter Silverman at Dorotheum in Vienna on April 9 for €36,900 ($50,000), well over its €15,000–20,000 estimate ($20,000–27,000), and now he is trying to have its attribution changed to the master from Urbino, Le Figaro reports.

“Vittorio Sgarbi is the first to suggest an attribution to the master, Silverman says. Now I’m going to let the experts have their say and see if a consensus emerges. For my part, all that I can say with certainty is that my wife and I are very happy to own this magnificent portrait.”