A painting by Diego Velázquez of Queen Isabel de Borbón, which was leading an auction next February in New York with a starting price of 35 million dollars, was withdrawn by Sotheby’s house, without any explanation.
“Bid closed” is the only thing that the auction house has posted on its page regarding this piece, from the early 1630s, the most important work by Velázquez to hit the market in half a century, after his portrait by Juan de Pareja.
EFE tried to communicate with Sothebys but its headquarters in New York is closed for the Christmas holidays and will resume operations on January 2.
The work has been in a private family collection since 1978, Sotheby’s reported when it announced an Old Masters auction for February.
The portrait hung for many years in the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid, next to that of Philip IV dressed in black, but after Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Spanish territory in 1808 it was transferred to France and exhibited in the Spanish gallery of King Louis Philippe. I in the Louvre museum.
In 1838, the painting was sold to Henry Huth, a banker and book collector, and remained in the hands of his family until they sold it in 1950. That was the last time it was at a public auction before going to a public auction in 1978. private family collection of which Sotheby’s did not offer further details.
The painting was expected to give a boost to the market for European old masters, which accounted for only 4% of the $67.8 billion in art market sales in 2022, says trade magazine Artnews, citing an Art Basel report. and the UBS company.