Last 8th July Christie’s auctioned among its Old Masters some recovered treasures, whose traces had gone lost. Besides the rediscovery of Jean-Antoine Watteau’s masterpiece “La surprise”, sold for 12,361,250 pounds, 3 drawings by Goya have re-emerged, after 131 years of not knowing anything about them.
At first, it was believed that the three recovered drawings by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) could have fetched a profit equal to 2 million pounds, then they were sold individually and totalled a much higher amount, the same that happened for Watteau’s painting.
The most valuable work of the three was “Bajar riñendo”(Down they come), which alone was bought for 2,281,250 pounds, equal to 2,862,969 euros, an authentic record for works on paper by the Spanish genius, never sold before for such an amount. Altogether the 3 works totalled 4,010,150 pounds, equivalent to 5,032,739 euros, therefore more than twice as much as the estimated amount. Actually, Goya’s works were already famous and had already been sold: 105 drawings by the artist had been exceptionally auctioned in April 1877 in Paris, and after the sale, no trace had been left of the three that have now been recovered. The drawings have been kept very well, given that they have not been framed nor exposed to the light and they still bear traces of the previous auction: indeed, at the top of the sheets there are still the holes of the pins used to exhibit the lots in question at the Hôtel Drouot. The 3 works on paper that have just been sold came from a private Swiss collection and were subjected to Christie’s experts who immediately recognized the Spanish master’s hand. With the other 102 works presented at the 1877 auction, these drawings were contained in 2 of the artist’s private albums, where he had collected, since 1796, newspaper cuttings, personal annotations and imaginary drawings of people portrayed in different situations and various ways, but always intensively characterized.
Bajar riñendo (Down they come), which results as the top lot of the three drawings auctioned, was originally kept in the Spanish painter’s “D” album entitled “women and witches”, which was completed between 1819 and 1823 and included few pieces. The drawing in question portrays four women while they are arguing, following each other and twirling in the air; one of them has been caught by her hair and is screaming for the pain. The drawing develops in an articulated way on paper, it renders the whirling and muddling of movements of the alleged witches who, in a sort of vortical dance, in an indefinite and free space, are chasing each other dangerously and seem to be falling from the sky.
The second place on the sales podium of the three magnificent drawings is well deserved by a work entitled “Arrepentimiento” (repentance), sold for 959,650 pounds, equal to 1,204,361 euros, belonging to the “F” album. A praying man is represented sitting on a rock opposite a cross with his eyes looking up to the sky and his mouth wide open. The dramatic, pathetic sense of the situation is underlined by the sharp features that describe the rocks – only reference to the field of action – and that are repeated on the outlines and the body of the male figure, deeply marked by his suffering. Those lean features, the imploring eyes and the mouth wide open seem to preannounce the expression of Munch’s scream.
Last, only for selling value but certainly not for importance, is a painting from the artist’s “F” album and sold for 769,250 pounds equivalent to 965,409 euros. The work draws inspiration from a public insurrection of the 18th century in Saragoza during which officer Lampiños, corrupted man who had molested women and students, was captured by the plebeians and sewn inside a dead horse. With his usual cutting irony, Goya described a bitter historical event transforming it into a satirical vignette, with tragic-comical features: a large arch represents the background of the horse’s dead body, from the backside of which the officer’s head is popping out, trapped and surrounded by a group of snarling dogs. Goya not only represented history, but he also wrote it down on the back of the paper support, where we can read that Lampiños survived a whole night in those conditions and then, as confirmed by a subsequent drawing kept at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, he died with an injection of quicklime. According to Christie’s, the three works, sold individually, have been grasped for record prices from buyers who wish to remain anonymous.

web site Christie’s: http://www.christies.com/index.aspx

translated by Giorgina Arcuri