Also see El Greco at Auction
Doménikos Theotokópoulos, called El Greco (Crete 1541–1614 Toledo)
Portrait of a Gentleman
Estimate: £800,000-1,200,000
An early masterpiece by El Greco leads a group of three exceptional Old Master paintings restituted to the heirs to the Julius & Camilla Priester Collection which will be offered for sale in Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale on 7 December, as highlights of Classic Week in London. One of the earliest surviving portraits by the artist and one of the last to remain in private hands, El Greco’s Portrait of a Gentleman, 1570, is charged with an uncompromising intensity that would define the artist’s revolutionary idiom, securing his reputation as one of the great visionaries of western art (estimate: £800,000-1,200,000).
It will be offered alongside an extremely rare, trompe l’oeil church interior by Emmanuel de Witte (estimate: £500,000-800,000) and a powerful portrait by the Master of Frankfurt (estimate: £40,000- 60,000).
These works highlight the quality and significance of the collection assembled by Julius (1870–1954) and Camilla Priester (1885-1962), passionate Viennese art collectors who had the entirety of their collection seized by the Nazi authorities between 1938 and 1944. Julius Priester – a respected industrialist, who was involved in Petroleumgesellschaft Galizin GmbH and had commercial interests in oil and the energy sector – made extensive efforts to trace and recover their missing collection after the war. This search was continued after his death by his widow, and subsequently by the couple’s heirs.
The El Greco, which was part of the seminal 2019/2020 Greco exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, will go on view for the first time ahead of the sale at Christie’s New York on 29 October until 11 November, before being exhibited in Hong Kong from 25 to 29 November; the de Witte will be on view at Christie’s Amsterdam from 1 to 3 of November. The three works will be reunited for the pre-sale London exhibition which will run from 3 to 7 December.
Henry Pettifer, Head of the Old Masters Department, Christie’s London, commented: “We are honoured to be acting on behalf of the heirs to the Julius and Camilla Priester Collection in the sale of these three fantastic paintings in the upcoming Old Masters sale in December. It will be especially exciting to bring to the market this mesmerising early portrait by El Greco – one of the most transcendent artists in the Old Masters category.”
EL GRECO
Dated 1570, the year the artist arrived in Rome, El Greco’s astonishing portrait follows an established Venetian pattern, owing much to the late works in that genre by his master Titian and Jacopo Bassano. Set against a neutral backdrop, the dramatically lit face and hands are in deliberate contrast to the sober black costume, with the sitter’s features framed by his closely-cropped dark hair and beard. The influence of El Greco’s Venetian contemporaries, particularly Tintoretto, is further evident in the restrained tonality, open brushwork and application of dry paint, which are masterfully employed in the beautifully preserved modelling of the man’s head, and in details such as the rendering of the book. Despite the presence of both a date (January, or June, 1570) and coat-of-arms the identity of the sitter has eluded scholars of the artist’s work.
El Greco’s portraits, which have captivated his fellow artists since his early years in Italy, greatly influenced portraiture throughout the twentieth century, notably informing the work of other pioneering figures including Egon Schiele, Amedeo Modigliani and Alberto Giacometti. This portrait by El Greco represents a key work in our understanding of development in this genre.
