Stolen Titian found at bus stop sells for £15mn

A stolen painting by Titian, returned to a London bus stop in 2002, sold at Christie’s this week for £15mn (£17.6mn with fees, est £15mn-£25mn). “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt” (c1508-10) was burgled from Longleat, a stately home in south-west England, in 1995 and returned seven years later in a carrier bag after the announcement of a £100,000 reward for information. The small painting, a prized early work, was also among a collection of Venetian works looted by Napoleon’s army from Vienna in 1809. 

The fourth Marquess of Bath, owner of Longleat, acquired the painting from Colnaghi gallery, which had bought it in the same Christie’s King Street saleroom in 1878 — albeit then for 350 guineas (the equivalent of about £36,700 today).

Of the work’s condition, Clementine Sinclair, Christie’s London head of Old Masters paintings, says it has “survived remarkably well for a painting that is over 500 years old”. After its most recent recovery, “the only thing reported was that it was found without its frame,” she says. The work sold on Tuesday to one telephone bidder, most likely its pre-arranged third-party guarantor.

After more than five years in Hong Kong, Lévy Gorvy Dayan will not renew the lease on its Central gallery space at the end of the year. Since 2020, the gallery has been run by Rebecca Wei, who left Christie’s to head LGD’s Asian operations as a partner in Lévy Gorvy Dayan & Wei. She will continue to be based in Hong Kong and work in collaboration with the gallery, she says, though the details of her role are still being finalised.

“Client behaviour has changed,” Wei says. “When I started, people wanted to see the specialists and works in person. Since the pandemic, they have got used to long-distance purchasing and now want you to go to them.” Her target clients buy at the $30mn-plus levels, are based throughout Asia and number about 50, she says.

The closure also takes into account a more muted macroeconomic environment, as galleries around the world reassess their pricey square-footage commitments. “We are being realistic about how I should spend my time — which is face to face with clients,” she says. Co-founder Brett Gorvy says there are no plans to open elsewhere in the continent.

The second edition of London’s Treasure House Fair proved smarter-looking and better-attended than its rushed first outing in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

Some exhibitors privately expressed concerns, however, that the antiquities business Phoenix Ancient Art was among the new entrants this year. In 2023 after an investigation and proceedings lasting seven years, a Geneva court gave the gallery’s then president and co-founder, Ali Aboutaam, an 18-month suspended jail sentence. He had entered a plea bargain on charges of illegally importing some antiquities, sometimes with forged documentation.

A statement from his lawyers says that “a few dozen objects”, out of 15,000 investigated, were “documented below legal requirements or returned by our client, of his own initiative, on the grounds that they could have been obtained, by the person who placed them on the market, but without [Aboutaam’s] knowledge, in a manner contrary to the law”.

Aboutaam retired two years ago from the gallery “to focus on the establishment of a foundation”, says his co-founder and brother, Hicham Aboutaam, now president of Phoenix Ancient Art. “We operate publicly and in total transparency in the strictest locations in the world [for antiquities], New York and Geneva, which gives comfort to our buyers.” He brought 24 objects to the fair, including a second-century AD marble Roman head of Ariadne (£80,000) and a Greek terracotta wine jug (c760-750BC, £110,000).

Treasure House director and co-founder Thomas Woodham-Smith underlined his fair’s stringent vetting processes and said: “We want to support Hicham in his desire to be part of the wider global antiquities dealing fraternity and encourage a transparent market.” 

Megan Mulrooney is taking over three of the Los Angeles spaces run by her previous employer, Nino Mier Gallery, and will open under her own name in September. The adjacent West Hollywood galleries include a 5,000 sq ft space.

Mulrooney was a senior director at Nino Mier, which is closing its LA spaces in the summer while keeping its galleries in New York and Brussels. The decision comes after The Art Newspaper reported that, according to former staff, the gallery had underpaid five of its artists in 2018-19. Nino Mier Gallery did not comment on the allegations but said that closing in LA was “a strategic business decision”, which had “nothing to do with recent media reports”.

Mulrooney, a native Angeleno, opens with solo shows of Marin Majić and recent graduate Piper Bangs. An intergenerational group show, organised by Canadian artist Jon Pylypchuk, opens at the same time. Mulrooney does not yet represent artists but says she is planning to.

The art dealers Offer Waterman and adviser Francis Outred are joining forces for a show of Frank Auerbach’s paintings of London later this year. The Mayfair exhibition will open on October 4 and include about 25 depictions of areas such as Primrose Hill and St Pancras, close to Auerbach’s north London studio. The artist refers to these works as “landscapes” and they account for about a quarter of his output, Waterman says (the majority are portraits and self-portraits). Their relative rarity means they attract demand, adds Waterman — Auerbach’s auction record is for “Mornington Crescent” (1969), which sold last year for £4.6mn (£5.6mn with fees).

Works in the show date from 1959 to 2020 and are not for sale, rather borrowed from private collections and museums including the National Museum in Cardiff and Touchstones in Rochdale. While it might seem counterintuitive for art dealers to mount non-selling shows, it all helps an artist’s market and Waterman explains that “we want this to be a proper survey so it has to be a loan exhibition. Museums don’t like to give works otherwise.” Outred has taken space in the same building as Waterman and the show will run across both galleries.