It is not every day that an artwork by the world's most expensive artist comes up for auction. However, on July 8, a study of a bear's head by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci will be auctioned as part of Christie's exceptional sale in London.
The silver pen drawing on a piece of paper measuring just 7 x 7 cm is one of only eight drawings by the Renaissance master that, apart from those in the British Royal Collection and the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth, is still in private hands.
The drawing is similar to three other small-format animal studies by da Vinci, which are part of museum collections in England, Scotland and the U.S. that all date to the first half of the 1480s. The experts at Christie's also note that the bear's head resembles the head of the ermine in the Da Vinci painting The Lady with the Ermine, which was created around 1489/90 and is now exhibited in the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, Poland.
Questions always swirl around an attribution to da Vinci, as most recently in the case of the Flora bust in Berlin's Bode Museum or, more famously, the $450 million painting Salvator Mundi. However, the authenticity of this bear drawing is not in question.
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The July sale is not the first time the drawing will be auctioned at Christie's, as Ben Hall, Chairman, Old Master Paintings, Christie's New York, reports, "I am delighted that this masterpiece, one of the most important works from the Renaissance still in private hands, has once again been entrusted to Christie’s after its first sale in 1860. The work has been owned by some of the most distinguished collectors in the field of Old Masters across many centuries, not least the present owner who has owned it since 2008."
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In 1860, financier and art dealer Samuel Woodburn sold the drawing at Christie's. He had inherited it thirty years earlier from the English painter Sir Thomas Lawrence, who is the earliest known owner of the drawing. Lawrence left the artwork to his patron, Woodburn, upon his death in 1830. The drawing was sold at auction in 1860 for £2.50 (approximately $450 in today's currency). Now, Head of Bear is offered with an estimate of £8-12 million ($11-16 million).
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"After having sold Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing Horse and Rider in 2001 for over £8m ($11m), still the world record for a drawing by the artist today, Christie’s is proud to offer another work by arguably the greatest draughtsman the world has ever known," said Stijn Alsteens, International Head of Department, Old Masters Group, Christie’s Paris. "I have every reason to believe we will achieve a new record in July for Head of a Bear, one of the last drawings by Leonardo that can be expected to come onto the market."
