A JMW Turner watercolour showing The Splügen Pass, estimated at $1.5m-2m at Christie's.
This month is always a busy time for the art market in New York – traditionally a period when the major auction houses turn the spotlight first on Americana sales then the field of Old Masters.
And it is also when The Winter Show – the city’s longstanding art and antiques fair – is staged.
On the Old Masters front this year there is a full schedule of sales at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Running alongside this is the latest staging of Master Drawings New York, the city’s gallery based event held by specialist dealers in this field.
In a change from recent years when it has fielded just a sale of Old Master Drawings and Prints, Christie’s New York is putting on a much larger selection of Old Master events as part of its Classic Week series. Six auctions take place.
Live events start on January 24 with Old Master and 19th century prints followed on January 25 with Remastered: Old Masters from the Collection of JE Safra, to be sold without reserves and an Old Masters sale. This is followed the next day by Old Master and British drawings.
Another single-owner auction, Modern Medici: Masterpieces from a New York Collection, follows on January 27.
Alongside these will be the Old Masters part two sale running online from January 23-31.
Sotheby’s New York Masters series runs to nine auctions (seven live and two online) spanning January 18-30.
The first of the live auctions will be its Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries sale taking place on January 25. This will be followed on January 26 by a raft of sales: Masterpieces from the Fisch Davidson Collection, an ensemble of 17th century Baroque works of art; then Dutch masterpieces from the Theiline Scheumann Collection; the auction house’s part one Old Masters sale followed in the afternoon by Bouguereau and his Circle.
January 27 is given over to The European Art sale part I and Master Paintings and Sculpture part II.
The two online events will be Old Master and British Works on Paper from January 18-25 and The European Art Sale part II (January 23-30).
