| | | | | | | | Document | Sale Catalog Br-6 | |
| Auction House | Tresham (Henry) -- from catalog: [Henry Tresham] | | Sale Location | No.20 Lower Brook Street, London, England, UK | | Seller(s) | Day, Alexander
from catalog: [None]
from other sources: [Alexander Day] | | Lugt Number | 6186 | | No. of Painting Lots | 36 | | Notes | The contents of this sale were paintings imported from Italy by the English artist/dealer, Alexander Day. It was held by private contract in the rooms of Henry Tresham (cf. Wm. Buchanan, Memoirs, 1824, II, p.3) at No.20 Lower Brook St., but it is not certain that Tresham was involved in organizing the sale. The page listing the "Conditions of Sale" in the catalogue gives the month of January, but newspaper advertisements indicate that the sale did not open until Feb.2. Later announcements show the sale was supposed to close in April, but was reopened and did not finally end until May 7. No owner is given in the catalogue, but both Farington (Diary, March 19 and May 8, 1801) and Buchanan (Memoirs, 1824, II, pp.3-10) discuss the exhibition and identify Day as the owner. Buchanan calls the sale the avant-courier of the many important sales to follow. The pictures, most of which were of high quality, had been recently purchased in Rome from such collections as the Colonna, Borghese and Aldobrandini. Many, such as Mantegna's Nativity, Titian's Venus and Adonis and Raphael's St. Catherine, have since found their way into major museums, most notably the National Gallery in London, and only a few are no longer identifiable. Buchanan gives the asking prices for some of the lots, and most of those he quotes are above £1000. The catalogue is brief and the descriptions are reduced to the fewest words possible, as was common in sales by private contract. It exists in two versions: The AAP and SML copies have 36 lots (but lack lot 32) and asterisks are placed next to 17 of the lots, indicating they were already sold. The RKDH catalogue has just 30 lots, but is clearly the later of the two since it has asterisks by six paintings that had not yet been sold in the earlier versions of the catalogue. Moreover, the numbering of the last two lots in the RKDH catalogue does not correspond to that of the AAP and SML catalogues. Lot 29 is the same as lot 31 in the earlier catalogues, which, however, lack lot 30 by Sassoferrato. We have assumed that this lot probably corresponded to the missing no.32 in the AAP and SML catalogues, and because we have followed the numbering of the earlier catalogues, we have substituted lot 30 from the RKDH catalogue for lot 32. Buchanan's resumé of the sale follows the later, i.e. RKDH, catalogue, although he drops off the last lot, no.30. Many of the unsold pictures reappear at a later sale by private contract held by Day in Buchanan's gallery on May 24, 1808, where even some of the pictures supposedly sold earlier reappear. (See also Redford, Art Sales, I, 1888, p.83.) (B. Fredericksen) | | Catalog Location(s) | Buchanan [annotations used in Sales Contents; photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Gives some buyers, but in most cases they refer to transactions made some years after the conclusion of the sale, and so we have not always included them. Buchanan also gives "valuations" -- which we have included -- for some of the paintings, but it is unclear whether these valuations were made at the time of the present sale or later when the paintings actually changed hands. Moreover, they do not necessarily represent prices paid.
AAP [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Not annot. excepting some pencilled scribbles.
SML [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Not annot. excepting a cross by lot 23.
RKDH [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Not annot. | | See Also | Sale Contents | | | Art Sales Catalogues Online | | | |
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