Monday's Madonna & Child from 16th Century at Auction

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Scott Reyburn

Detail of The 16th-century German painting ‘‘Virgin and Child on a grassy bank.’’ Credit Sotheby’s

UNITED KINGDOM---Up until the 1980s, paintings by canonical figures such as Rembrandt, Rubens and Velázquez were the main income-generators for Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Since then, they’ve fallen out of fashion with wealthy collectors, who increasingly want to buy instantly recognizable works by “brand” artists rather than connoisseurs’ paintings whose authorship might be open to question. Now 20th- and 21st-century art, and even Chinese antiques, are more lucrative categories for the salerooms. Last year, worldwide auctions of Old Master paintings raised 1 billion euros, or about $1.4 billion. Unlike the supercharged market for contemporary art, auction sales of Old Masters have actually contracted; in 2011, they stood at €1.4 billion. [link]