Sotheby’s Teams Up With Old Master Dealers to Offer More Than 100 Artworks From Their Inventories in a Pair of Unorthodox Online Sales

Art dealers have historically
regarded auction houses with the skepticism of a family dog seeing
the vet’s office through the windshield of what he thought was a
fun car ride. During the lockdown era, however, the formerly
strange bedfellows of galleries and auction houses have launched a
series of new alliances. 

The latest is “The Dealer’s
Eye,” a new collaboration between Sotheby’s and dozens of dealers
across the US and Europe. The auction house is hosting two special
online sales—one featuring New York dealers and another, London
galleries—open for bidding from June 18 through 25. Combined, they
will feature more than 100 paintings and drawings from 39
dealers.

The project was conceived by Otto Naumann, a veteran dealer who came out of
retirement in 2018 to join Sotheby’s Old Master department, as
a way to offer gallerists a larger platform for their wares while
art fairs and swanky openings remain out of the
question. 

“With exhibitions and art fairs currently on pause, it occurred
to me that galleries might welcome the exposure and the sale of
their works through Sotheby’s,” Naumann tells Artnet News. “I
imagined myself in this situation, had I still been an active
dealer, and I know I would have welcomed such an opportunity.”

“Auction houses have such a special and reciprocal relationship
with dealers and galleries,” he continues, “and we truly want to
empower them by giving them an opportunity to reach new clients and
promote their artists and their extraordinary work to an
international audience.”

The initiative, which came together in just three weeks,
required extensive negotiations between the auction house and the
dealers, who had their own specialists in the mix with strong
opinions about estimates and other elements of the sale.

Participating galleries—including Colnaghi, Lawrence Steigrad Fine Art, and
Richard L. Feigen & Co. in New York and Agnews Gallery, Charles
Beddington, and Day & Faber in London—were invited to consign three
works each. Sotheby’s waived vendors’ fees, according to a
spokesperson, but will still receive its standard buyer’s premium
on each lot. In what Naumann described to The Art
Newspaper as “a first,” collectors will be able to
correspond directly with the galleries through the Sotheby’s
platform after the sale. None of the lots will carry a
guarantee.

Among the highlights are
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s stately portrait Young Girl in Antique
Costume, consigned by
New York gallery Wildenstein & Co (estimate: $60,000–80,000);
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s The Wood of Fontainbleau, offered by Vienna’s Galerie Sanct Lucas
($70,000–90,000); and Thomas Patch’s View of the River Arno with the Ponte alle
Grazie, on offer from
London’s Robilant Fine Art ($250,000–376,000).

The collaboration “is particularly welcome during a
period when online auctions of Old Master paintings are doing
particularly well, confounding those inclined to see this as a
field not particularly suited to selling online,” London-based
dealer Charles Beddington said in a statement. “At the same
time, Old Master dealers currently have limited access to their
clients, and are bound to find particularly welcome the wide
exposure provided by collaboration with Sotheby’s.”

“The Dealer’s Eye” is the latest
example of an emerging trend. Though once positioned in competition for the
same slices of art-market pie, auction houses and dealers have
joined forces in the quarantine era, when houses are otherwise
struggling to secure a steady stream of consignments. Old Master
dealers, meanwhile, are experiencing a steep learning curve when it
comes to the online marketplace, making a collaboration with an
established brand with e-commerce capabilities all the more
appealing. 

In the past few months,
Sotheby’s has partnered with Old Master dealers twice. In April,
the auction house’s sale of artworks from dealer Rafael Valls
tripled its pre-sale estimate, bringing in $2 million. In May, an
auction of items from the collection of dealer Danny Katz pulled in
$2.8 million, according to Art Market
Monitor. This spring,
the company also launched its own Gallery
Network, a digital
marketplace for blue-chip galleries that takes a flat commission
for each sale.  

Meanwhile, Christie’s
announced last week its
own plans to partner with La Biennale Paris, the fair dedicated to
art and antiques, for a special online sale in September in lieu of
its cancelled live edition.

“Dealers play such a vital role in the art market,” says
Naumann. “I’d like to think that we will continue to see various
collaborations formulate even after the quarantine is over.

The post Sotheby’s Teams Up With Old Master Dealers to Offer
More Than 100 Artworks From Their Inventories in a Pair of
Unorthodox Online Sales appeared first on artnet
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