Auction in New York: 45 million for the “man of pain”

A painting by Italian Renaissance master Botticelli has changed hands for $45.4 million. Three bidders competed in New York for the portrait of Jesus.

It was the first major auction of the year in New York. And in the words of Christopher Apostle, head of the Old Masters department at Sotheby’s, “a clear vote of confidence in the international art market”.

Outstanding among them: Sandro Botticelli’s painting “Man in Pain”, which changed hands for $45.4 million after a seven-minute bidding war. It was not initially announced who ultimately acquired the tempera on wood portrait of the Risen Christ. It fetched just £10,000 when it last went under the hammer in 1963.

Paintings have long received little attention

For a long time, the painting received little attention before it was prominently exhibited for the first time in 2009 in the Frankfurt Städel at Botticelli’s first monographic exhibition in the German-speaking world.

The “Man of Pain” is a late work by the most important painter and draftsman of the early Renaissance, who died in Florence in 1510 at the age of 65. Only a dozen works by him have survived. The well-known: “The Birth of Venus” and “The Spring”, both of which can be seen in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

A year ago, the auction of another Botticelli painting caused a sensation: The portrait “Young Man with Medallion” brought in record proceeds of 92.2 million dollars.