RELEASE: Classic Week, 24 NOVEMBER – 17 DECEMBER
London – Christie’s announces Classic Week, a marquee series of ten sales celebrating craftsmanship and the story of creativity across time, from antiquity to the 21st century, to be offered across five online and five live auctions taking place from 24 November to 17 December. Classic Week features Old Master Paintings and Sculpture, British & European Art, Antiquities, and Valuable Books and Manuscripts. Works on paper are strongly represented this season, ranging from manuscript illuminations, to old master and British drawings and watercolours, to Quentin Blake illustrations.
An exhibition and viewing for the sales will take place at Christie’s King Street from 3 December – 16 December under socially distanced regulations strictly adhering to government guidelines.
The ten auctions feature a vast array of works, from exceptional Old Master Paintings - a re-discovered Banquet still-life by Dutch master, Jan Davidsz De Heem, a serene Nativity by Bernardino Luini and a rare pastoral landscape by Paulus Potter; to a fine collection of Italian Old Master Drawings from the Robert Landolt Collection; a collection of works from the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers in the Joe Setton Collection; a Roman marble terminal figure of Dionysus in the Antiquities sale, last seen in Christie’s saleroom almost 100 years ago and a particularly fine Nottingham alabaster relief from the 15th century in the Old Master Paintings and Sculpture sale. The Professor, Dealer, Collector sale includes a spectacular leaf from the Prayer book of Enriquez de Ribera, depicting scenes from the Passion of Christ illuminated by Simon Bening and an auction of 200 whimsical drawings by the illustrator Quentin Blake closes Classic Week on 17 December.
