| | | | | | | | Document | Sale Catalog Br-998 | |
| Auction House | Coxe (Peter) -- from catalog: Peter Coxe | | Sale Location | [No.1] Maddox St., Hanover Square, London, England, UK | | Seller(s) | from catalog: Two Foreign Gentlemen; and A Gentleman | | Lugt Number | 8191 | | No. of Painting Lots | 179 | | Notes | The contents were solely paintings, and the catalogue describes the owners as "two foreign gentlemen" and a third "gentleman" who was supposedly selling his pictures "with the view to further his son's prospects in the army." Although none of these consigners can be identified, a few of the lots can be traced to earlier or later sales where they belonged to a variety of people and it is therefore doubtful that there were just three consigners. Five of the more iprominent paintings, for instance, had been left unsold at the sale of George Graves on May 6/7, 1803 (Br-190) and may havs still been his property at the time of the present sale. If Geo. Watson's annotations in the OGA copy are reliable, only 15 of the 179 lots were sold. Prices for bought-in lots ranged up to £157.10, but the highest price realized for any painting that actually changed hands was just £42, paid for a Crucifixion by Van Dyck. It is still unclear why the results were so poor; presumably a large number of consigners would not have all made the same mistake of placing the reserves too high. Taken altogether, the sale may have included works of the first rank, andt the disappointing result possibly derived from the difficult economic situation. (B. Fredericksen) | | Catalog Location(s) | RKDH [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. on the first day with the names of a few buyers and most prices.
OGA [annotations used in Sales Contents; photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. with all prices, indicating which lots were sold and which bought in. The annotator was Geo. Watson who was working from a marked set of catalogues deposited by the auctioneers in the Excise Office.
VAL [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. in pencil by the dealer Woodin with some prices for lots 1-38 on the first day. | | Photocopies | NGL and CIL (both of VAL) | | See Also | Sale Contents | | | Art Sales Catalogues Online | | | |
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