Offered at Christie’s on July 11, the Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82) head study of the painter Maria Stillman (née Spartali), overshot a £150,000-250,000 estimate and was knocked down at £340,000 (£419,250 with buyer’s premium).
Consigned direct from Lowry’s estate, the 19 x 14in (49 x 36cm) black chalk sketch was one of 17 works by Rossetti that Lowry purchased after retirement. It had recently featured at the Lowry & The Pre-Raphaelites exhibition that ran at The Lowry in Salford until February.
A further work from the same source was a female head study by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-1898) that sold at £50,000 against a £20,000-30,000 estimate.
The top lot of Christie’s Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art sale was The Bramham Moor Hounds at Weeton Whin by Sir Alfred James Munnings (1878-1959) that came from the estate of George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood.
It fetched a mid-estimate £1.8m.
