Jean-Baptiste Greuze, "Portrait of a Boy," oil on canvas, 56.5 x 46.5 cm Estimate: 120,000 - 150,000 Euro Sold for €620,000 on 7th of April 2014, Lot 17
This portrait of a man by Jean-Baptiste Greuze fetched 620,000 Euro at auction this week - what an incredible price for a work by this French romantic painter of the 18th century. The auction house Rieunier & Associes in Paris put an estimate of 120,000 - 150,000 Euro. The portrait is the 5th most expensive painting by Greuze sold at auction. The auction record for the artist was broken when a large multi-figured composition was sold at Sotheby's New York on 31st of January 2013 for 1.1million USD! 2nd place goes to Greuze's portrait of Benjamin Franklin with 998,000 USD back in 1998 at Sotheby's New York, 3rd place when Mr. Robert Edsel in Dallas sold "Portrait of Florentius Josephus van Ertborn (1784-1840) at Sotheby's New York in January 2011 for 938,500 USD. This portrait is now hanging at the Rockoxhuis in Antwerp which is very fitting as Ertborn was an aristocrat, politician and great patron of the arts, who gifted 114 paintings from his collection, many of them incomparable masterpieces, to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp.
