Newly Discovered Rembrandt Drawing to Debut at Swann Galleries
Rembrandt van Rijn, Study of a Prophet or Apostle (St. Peter), pen and dark brown-black ink and
wash on blue laid paper, circa 1634. Estimate: $30,000-50,000
New York — The Thursday, April 28 offering of Old Master Through Modern Prints at Swann Galleries will feature iconic images from the late fifteenth century through the mid-twentieth century.
The Old Masters selection is anchored by a newly discovered, recently attributed drawing by Rembrandt van Rijn ($30,000-50,000). The drawing—Study for a Prophet or Apostle (St. Peter), pen and ink and wash on blue laid paper, circa 1634—is now thought to be the original version of another drawing of the same subject previously catalogued several decades earlier as a drawing by the artist by scholar Otto Benesch.
The rich assortment of Old Master prints includes lifetime impressions by Albrecht Dürer, Giovanni B. Piranesi, Francisco José de Goya, as well as Rembrandt, alongside an array of fine examples by artists such as Pieter Bruegel, Hendrick Goltzius, Claude Lorrain, Antonio Canaletto, and the German “Little Masters”: Albrecht Altdorfer, Hans Sebald Beham, Heinrich Aldegrever and Georg Pencz. Highlights include Dürer’s The Nemesis, engraving, circa 1501-02 ($70,000-100,000); Rembrandt’s early Self Portrait with a Raised Sabre, etching, 1634 ($30,000-50,000); and Canaletto’s View of a Town on a River Bank, etching, circa 1740 ($5,000-8,000).
The sale is led by Pablo Picasso’s chef-d’oeuvre etching and drypoint Le Repas Frugal, 1904 ($100,000-150,000). Though the plate for this print was completed in 1904 and Picasso made some initial proofs, it wasn't published as an edition until 1913 when Picasso's then art dealer, Ambroise Vollard, purchased the plate and steel-faced it. The print on offer is part of the La Suite des Saltimbanques, along with 11 other drypoints and two additional etchings created by Picasso between 1904 and 1906.
Prints by nineteenth-century artists include Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, James A. M. Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Paul Gauguin and Rodolphe Bresdin, with highlights including Renoir’s color lithograph Baigneuse, debout, en pied, 1896, and Toulouse-Lautrec’s color lithograph Le Jockey, 1899, two of the quintessential fin de siècle color prints.
The Modern American prints section abounds with masterworks by John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, George Bellows, Martin Lewis, Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, including Sargent’s rarely-seen at auction Head of Young Woman, lithograph, 1871 ($7,000-10,000), and Benton’s Wreck of the Ol’97, lithograph, 1944 ($8,000-12,000).
Completing the auction is an extraordinary selection of Modern European prints by many of the most sought-after twentieth-century artists, including Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Max Beckmann, Lyonel Feininger and Paul Cézanne among others. Of note is Braque’s first print, Étude de Nu, etching, 1907-08 ($15,000-20,000), Cézanne’s Les Baigneurs (grande planche), color lithograph, circa 1896-98 ($20,000-30,000), and the very scarce Étude de nu renversé, etching, 1929, by Matisse ($10,000-15,000).
Exhibition hours are 12 p.m to 5 p.m from April 25 through April 27. Live online bidding platforms will be the Swann Galleries App, Invaluable, and Live Auctioneers. The complete catalogue and bidding information is available at www.swanngalleries.com and the Swann Galleries App.
Additional highlights can be found here.
