Last week’s Old Masters sales in London lacked any real blockbusters, but the discerning competition at the auctions generated an unmistakable sense of momentum. This year, Sotheby’s and Christie’s presented a similar—though not exactly comparable—mix of property and achieved fairly similar results. Sotheby’s had the larger total, at £62.5 million ($83.4 million), including the single-lot sale of the bronze casting of a classical statue of Laocoön that sold for £13.6 million, or more than $18 million. Over at Christie’s, the total was £52 million, or $69.5 million.

So, together, the two houses sold almost $153 million in art. That represents a 34 percent increase over 2025—a year when the figures were already juiced on account of Christie’s sale of a single Canaletto painting for around $45 million, or almost 40 percent of the entire season’s total.

Now, we all know the Old Masters market is even more susceptible to supply constraints than the broader art economy. Still, Old Masters sales are convincingly growing in both supply and demand—whether or not the appetite from bidders remains fairly selective. In fact, in these solid sales, there were still some notable lots that failed to find buyers.

We nevertheless seem to be coming to the end of a 20-year period during which contemporary art has held more fascination for collectors, many of whom have looked toward acquiring living artists. This process created a lot of relative value in the work of exceedingly talented artists like the Old Masters. Expanding into the Old Masters category is a valuable strategy for buyers and sellers, but we still have a long way to go for prices to catch up. As the sales in London evidenced, I suspect we’re still in the first phases of a rising market.

Auguste-Jean-Marie Carbonneaux, The Hamilton Laocoön (1817). Photo: Courtesy of Sotheby’s

Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, which sold two decades ago for about $4 million, was estimated at £8 million (more than $10 million) and sold for £9.6 million with fees, which works out to $12.9 million. Even accounting for inflation, the painting seems to have come close to doubling in value over 20 years. Sotheby’s also had a restored Rembrandt painting, Let the Little Children Come Unto Me, estimated at £8 million. The work had an irrevocable bid and seemed to sell to the bidder.

At Sotheby’s, Edwin Henry Landseer’s Scene in Braemar—Highland Deer was estimated at £3 million and sold for just under £6 million with fees. Works by Hans Memling, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Sandro Botticelli, François Boucher, and others all sold for prices close to their estimates. At Christie’s, those names that sold around their estimates include Peter Paul Rubens, Adriaen Coorte, William Blake, Joseph Wright, and others.

Edwin Henry Landseer, Scene in Braemar—Highland Deer. Photo: Rayan Bamhayan/Courtesy of Sotheby’s

The gaming of estimates is best illustrated by two still-life paintings by Jan van Huysum, a Dutch painter from the early 18th century noted for his flowers, that had been united by Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild in the 19th century and were offered at Christie’s with prices well below where they were bought a generation ago. One painting depicts a still life of fruit and was estimated at £3 million. The second, a clearly inferior flower portrait, was estimated at £2.5 million—a strange wrinkle given the painter’s specialization. Although the works have been offered as separate lots in recent times, they have curiously remained together through more than one sale. Last week, I’m told, both works were acquired again by a single buyer.

Both paintings had protective third-party guarantees. Nevertheless, they soared to £6.5 million ($8.7 million) and £5.5 million ($7.3 million), respectively. That combined $16 million price seems impressive until you learn that the works were acquired more than 20 years ago for $14 million. Inflation alone would make $25 million a comparable price. The sale served as an expensive reminder that the Old Masters category continues to convey bargains.

Indeed, value-hunting in the Old Masters category is the strongest sign of the influx of new collectors. The evening and day sales included numerous examples of sometimes obscure works outperforming their estimates. Among others, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard’s 18th century Portrait of Marquise Marie-Thérèse-Odile de la Valette was estimated at £400,000 and sold for £1.1 million; a 16th century painting from Girolamo da Santacroce was estimated at £100,000 but sold for £673,000; and a Dutch school painting of skulls estimated at £80,000 sold for £430,000.

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, Portrait of Marquise Marie-Thérèse-Odile de la Valette. Photo: Courtesy of Christie’s

At Sotheby’s, a set of seven canvases depicting the seven days of creation by an unidentified artist of the Flemish school was estimated at £120,000 but sold for almost £770,000; a portrait by Thomas Gainsborough estimated at £40,000 sold for £230,000; and a portrait attributed to the workshop of Bernhard Strigel was estimated at £100,000 but sold for £516,000. Another portrait by Gerard ter Borch was estimated at £100,000 and sold for £307,000. A small painting of a harem by Giovanni Antonio Guardi was estimated at £200,000 and sold for £614,000. Meanwhile, Giovanni Battista Foggini’s two carved reliefs were estimated at £600,000 but sold for more than £1.3 million.

An Ivan Aivazovsky painting of Venice was estimated at £500,000 and sold for £1.5 million, while a Petr Vereshchagin view of Saint Petersburg sold for nearly £450,000, significantly more than its £200,000 estimate. In the smaller sale of 19th and 20th century European and British art, three more Aivazovsky paintings sold for solid six-figure prices. Aivazovsky is a pillar of the Russian art market, which collapsed after the first Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Those works are finding a new audience in the Old Masters space. The same sale held a work by Finnish national treasure Helene Schjerfbeck, the tiny Dancing Shoes that sold for $480,000. The work had an irrevocable bid, but the final selling price was only slightly higher than the $466,000 paid for it more than 20 years ago.

I’m of two minds about paying too much attention to the White House’s latest attack on the Smithsonian. Of course, we should be vigilant about the fact that the White House and its allies continue to try to impose their own triumphalist ideology on our institutions as they attack historical consensus with thinly veiled complaints. But the White House has squandered much of the support for its one-note culture war against wokeism on foreign interventionist adventurism, and now has declining leverage for this campaign.

America’s museums remain wildly popular—none more so than the complex of Smithsonian museums, and especially recent additions like the National Museum of African American History and Culture. (For many of its visitors, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum is their first experience in an art museum.) The White House’s report is a dull document with little evidence to support its claims. There may still be a well of sympathy for this attack among a large portion of the public. But, so far, the report’s impact has been blunted by the overall confused messaging that has overtaken the MAGA movement.

That’s enough for today. I’ll be back on Friday.

M