Where angels tread

A Rembrandt enchants, yet, strangely, a Botticelli fails to move; and Old Master drawings invite us to ‘compare and contrast’

- Huon Mallalieu

THE year of Covid-19 has been organised rather on university lines, with terms and (relative) vacations. Of course, lockdowns one to three have lacked the social elements of Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity and their equivalents, just as the holidays have allowed most of us little in the way of travel. On the other hand, many lessons have undoubtedly been learned—and not only by homeschooling families. The successful mastering of the skills needed to sell online is among the most obvious for many businesses, and certainly for the art trade.

Also, time has been behaving oddly. Anyone much beyond the age of 21 is aware that usually years shrink; a simple example of the Theory of Relativity. Last February seems an age ago, but the weeks and months since have gone past in a blur. When I looked up my column on Sotheby’s first intercontinental online sale of important paintings from Rembrandt to Richter, I confidently expected to find it in October, or perhaps November. It was, in fact, August 13, and I had watched the sale itself as it happened on July 28.

Six months have eye-twinkled past and the more prosaically billed Master Paintings & Sculpture took place on January 28. This time, it was based in New York rather than London, but the format was much the same. By happy chance, it was possible to view many of the principal offerings physically, as the London leg of the sale’s world tour occurred during the vacation between our second and third terms.

I had the rooms almost to myself, as I had when I viewed the summer sale, and was able to spend many undisturbed minutes with the two stars of the show, the Botticelli Portrait of a Young Man holding a Portrait Roundel (Fig 1) and the little Rembrandt of Abraham and the Angels.