| | | | | | | | Document | Sale Catalog Br-513 | |
| Auction House | Christie's -- from catalog: Mr. Christie | | Sale Location | [No.125] Pall Mall, London, England, UK | | Seller(s) | from catalog: An Eminent Collector
from other sources: [Philip Hill] | | Lugt Number | 7273 | | No. of Painting Lots | 79 | | Notes | The sale consisted of 79 lots of old master paintings, the property of an anonymous collector. Once more, the owner's name must have been fairly widely known since it is inscribed on the title pages of at least three copies of the catalogue. He was Philip Hill, the prominent picture dealer in Greek St. and, since the retirement of Michael Bryan in 1804, perhaps the most successful of the local dealers. His activity as both buyer and seller is documented throughout the early years of the century, but the present sale seems to be the first dedicated entirely to his possessions. (Others took place in 1810 and 1811.) It would appear that the quality of the individual lots was probably fairly high, and certainly the prices were well above average. However, the OGA copy of the catalogue -- annotated by Geo. Watson, who had access to the copy given to the Excise Office -- reveals that the majority of lots, including most of those fetching the best prices, were not sold. The highest amount for any lot that found a buyer was £36.15, paid for a landscape by Joris van der Hagen. Unsold lots were knocked down for amounts ranging up to £840. It seems likely that these were generally works of good quality for which the reserves were set unreasonably high. The annotator of the MMNY copy puts the sale total at £4720.3.0, whereas it was in fact £482.20. (B. Fredericksen) | | Catalog Location(s) | CL [annotations used in Sales Contents] Auctioneer's copy, annot. with all buyers and prices. There are also notes about remittances from banks.
MMNY Annot. in pencil by J. Galpine with many notes giving the approximate dimensions. All of the prices have been added by another hand.
OGA [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. by Geo. Watson with all prices, indicating which lots were sold and which bought in. He was working from a marked set of catalogues deposited by the auctioneers in the Excise Office.
RKDH [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. with all prices. The annotator may have been the dealer John Smith.
VAL I [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. with all prices.
NGD Annot. in pencil with a few prices and a note by lot 37. The catalogue is contained in a volume that evidently belonged to Geo. Meade and the annotations may be his.
CIL Annot. in pencil with a few prices and a note by lot 45.
JPGM [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Not annot.
VAL II Not annot. | | Photocopies | MECL (of JPGM?) | | See Also | Sale Contents | | | Art Sales Catalogues Online | | | Digitized Catalog - GRI | | | Digitized Catalog - Met | | | |
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