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<\/p>\nGuido Reni is on a role. Once a leading artistic figure of early 17th century Rome, when his patrons included the influential Borghese family, the Bolognese artist (1575-1642) was later scorned by the modernist-minded, who dismissed his upward-gazing Madonnas as close to kitsch.<\/p>\n
But 21st-century scholars have displayed renewed interest in his subtlety and skill, leading to major museum exhibitions. And now he has set a world record at auction.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday afternoon (25 November) in Paris, Artcurial sold Reni\u2019s early-17th-century, oil-on-canvas work, David and Goliath, for \u20ac12.39m (including fees), breaking the artist\u2019s previous auction record by a considerable sum. The work\u2019s pre-sale estimate was just \u20ac2m\u2013\u20ac4m and its buyer, according to the auction house, was a private European collector.<\/p>\n
Reni\u2019s previous record at auction dates back to a Sotheby\u2019s London sale in 2008, when The Martyrdom of Saint Apollonia, an oil-on-copper painting, sold for \u00a31.8m. The same work then sold for a mere $819,000 at a 2022 auction at Christie\u2019s New York.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Left: Articural’s recording-setting David and Goliath. Right: the version of the painting held by the Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts d’Orl\u00e9ans
\u00a9Artcurial. \u00a9 Mus\u00e9es d\u2019Orl\u00e9ans<\/p>\n
Reni\u2019s David and Goliath has been the subject of debate in recent years. There are some six versions of the work, varying in composition, execution and attribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cReni loved the pleasure of variation,\u201d says Corentin Dury, the curator for the Old Masters collection at the Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts d’Orl\u00e9ans, which owns what is now regarded by many as the earliest autographed version of the painting. Until recently, a version held in the collection of the Louvre was considered \u201cmore important,\u201d Dury says, but analysis and comparisons with a drawing in a UK collection has led to a change of opinion. According to Drury, the record-setter was already known about, but was thought of as \u201cjust a later copy\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, Eric Turquin of the France-based Old Masters appraisers Cabinet Eric Turquin\u2014which helped bring the work to auction\u2014disagrees with Dury. He argues that his firm investigated a lead on the work earlier this year, when it was hanging in a castle in western France, and was therefore responsible for \u201cthe discovery\u201d of the painting. <\/p>\n
Turquin also disagrees with Dury\u2019s opinion regarding the importance of the Orl\u00e9ans museum’s version, in which David is seen staring directly into the giant head of the vanquished Goliath. The Louvre\u2019s version, and the version sold yesterday by Artcurial meanwhile, are quite similar, and show Goliath\u2019s head turned the other way around.<\/p>\n
Turquin, who attended Monday\u2019s auction, believes that the Louvre and Artcurial versions \u201cwere probably created together\u201d. He has no doubts about the significance of the recording-breaking work\u2014which \u201cexplains the price\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Guido Reni is on a role. Once a leading artistic figure of early 17th century Rome, when his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[10346,6225,6485,6486,116217,1120,96,116216,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-285493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art-market","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-auction-record","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-guido-reni","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}