Stolen Art DealerA nude young woman reclines on a bed of white and gold sheets and reaches up toward a shower of gold coins, while Cupid draws back a dark green curtain.
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Catalogue No. 1910 · Sotheby's · New York
Danaë
About $43.4 million in today’s money: 500 years of the typical US household’s income. Source
- Artist
- Orazio Gentileschi (Italian, 1563-1639)
- Title
- Danaë
- Date
- c.1621-23
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 161.6 x 226.7 cm (63 5/8 x 89 1/4 in.)
Orazio Gentileschi painted Danaë between about 1621 and 1623, in oil on canvas, 161.6 by 226.7 centimetres. A nude young woman lies on white and gold sheets and reaches upward to a rain of gold coins, and Cupid pulls back a dark green drape.
Giovanni Antonio Sauli of Genoa commissioned the picture in 1621, and it then passed by descent and inheritance in his family. Thomas P. Grange of London owned it by 1975. He sold it in 1977 to Richard L. Feigen, who in October 1998 sold it to a family trust. That trust consigned it for sale in 2016.
Sotheby's offered the painting in New York on 28 January 2016 as lot 41, with an estimate of $25 million to $35 million. The Los Angeles Times reports a price of $30.49 million with buyer's premium, and a hammer price of $27 million. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, acquired it at the sale. The New York Times says the price was an auction record for the artist, and Artnet News gives the previous record as $4.1 million, set in 2007.
The sale
- Auction house
- Sotheby's, New York
- Date
- 28 January 2016
- Lot
- 41
- Estimate
- $25,000,000-35,000,000
- Sold for
- $30.5 million (including buyer’s premium) · $30,490,000
- Record
- Auction record for the artist at the time of sale (The New York Times says so; previous record $4.1 million, 2007, per Artnet News) (as of January 2016)
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Provenance
1621
Commissioned in 1621 by Giovanni Antonio Sauli, Genoa; by descent and inheritance in the family
by 1975
Thomas P. Grange, London, by 1975
1977
By whom sold in 1977 to Richard L. Feigen
1998-10-02
By whom sold on 2 October 1998 to a family trust, the present consignor
2016-01-28
Acquired at the Sotheby's sale by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (Getty announcement, 28 January 2016)
Sources
- Sotheby's e-catalogue: Orazio Gentileschi, Danaë, Master Paintings Evening Sale, lot 41
- Los Angeles Times: Getty acquires Baroque masterpiece by Orazio Gentileschi (28 January 2016)
- Getty Museum news: Getty Museum Acquires 17th-Century Masterpiece by Orazio Gentileschi, Danaë (28 January 2016)
- Getty News: The Metamorphoses of Danaë (dimensions, date range)
- The New York Times: Getty Museum Acquires 'Danaë', a 17th-Century Work, at Sotheby's (30 January 2016)
Prices include the buyer’s premium, in US dollars at the time of sale, unless marked as a hammer price.