| | | | | | | | Document | Sale Catalog Br-1781 | |
| Auction House | Christie's -- from catalog: Mr. Christie | | Sale Location | [No.125] Pall Mall, London, England, UK | | Seller(s) | from catalog: The Earl of Upper Ossory, Dec.; [and] Willett Willett, Esq. Deceased
from auctioneer's copy: Earl of Upper Ossory; John Willett Willett; Woodburn; etc. | | Lugt Number | 9551 | | No. of Painting Lots | 133 | | Notes | Although the bulk of this sale consisted of paintings, a few lots of drawings were included at the end. The principal owner is described as the recently deceased John Fitzpatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory, whose pictures had been delivered from his country residence, presumably Ampthill Park in Bedfordshire. A second group had been consigned from the estate of John Willett Willett and consisted of eight pictures, all but one of which had been bought in at the Willett sale on May 31/June 2, 1813 (Br-1115). The remaining consigners, mostly dealers submitting larger numbers of pictures than the two mentioned above, are not referred to on the title page. The biggest group came from William Woodburn, and another comparable number had been sent by "S," who can be identified as Charles Spackman. The latter paintings were those that had been consigned by "Danby" to the sale on Mar.16, 1819 (Br-1773), and then withdrawn. However, the most valuable works in the sale were those belonging to the Earl of Upper Ossory, and many of these brought significant prices. The most expensive was a landscape by Jan Both, for which the dealer Emmerson paid £446.5, a very high price for this artist. (It was most recently in the Robarts collection in London.) A second picture from the same collection, described as Rape of a Nymph by a Sea God by Giulio Romano, was knocked down for £262.10, and a Portrait of a Young Female by Rembrandt brought £158.11. (Both of these are now lost.) Among the pictures from the Willett collection, Poussin's Mercury delivering the infant Bacchus to be reared by Nymphs brought the highest price, £177.9. (It is now in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass.) There are two versions of the catalogue that apparently differ in only one detail: In the later version (Type B) there is a second lot 116, Venus and Mercury teaching Cupid to read, described as a copy after Correggio. This lot is lacking in the earlier version, or is added by hand. (B Fredericksen) | | Catalog Location(s) | CL [annotations used in Sales Contents; photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Auctioneer's copy, annot. with all sellers, buyers and prices. (Type A)
RKDH [annotations used in Sales Contents; photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Annot. in ink and pencil by the dealer John Smith with the initials of a few buyers and all prices for lot 61 onward. (Type B)
VAL Annot. in pencil with a few buyers and prices. (Type A)
MMNY Annot. with the name of the buyer for lot 79 and the prices for lots 67-123a. It belonged to J.P. Anderdon and the annotations may be his. (Type A) | | Photocopies | NGL, FLNY, RKDH and BIB (all of CL) | | See Also | Sale Contents | | | Art Sales Catalogues Online | | | Digitized Catalog - Frick | | | |
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