FLORENCE, Italy – Florence auction house Pandolfini celebrates 90 years of activity with three exceptional auctions to be held on Oct. 28. The first sale will be devoted to a series of important Renaissance majolica at 5 p.m. local time. It will be followed by an auction prepared in the course of a whole year, consisting of 34 lots selected by each department of the auction house (at 7 p.m). At the end a masterpiece by James Tissot will be put on sale.
Pandolfini’s story begins in 1924 when Luigi Pandolfini, who owned a furniture store in Florence, began to organize occasional auctions. This activity, carried out by Luigi Pandolfini together with his son Cirano and his nephew Sergio, was developed through the years so that by the end of the 1930s the first auction with relevant objects of great artistic value was held: the auction of the collection of Villa Marten in Settignano. After World War II auctions represented the fastest way for the exhausted population to raise money from the sale of family objects that had survived. In 1954 the auction house moved into what is still his home, Palazzo Ramirez Montalvo in Borgo degli Albizzi. Its aim was to offer more selected objects to ensure prestige and artistic value. Each auction catalog was printed with extensive descriptions about the quality and provenance of the work.
Pandolfini grew and won the opportunity to hold sales of important heritages and private collections. For example, among the historical auctions was the sale of furnishings from Villa Papinian in San Domenico di Fiesole and from “Tasso” on the Elba island in 1972. Both were part of the legacy of Hugh Whitaker Sartorius, a foreigner who had settled in Tuscany in the 1950s and had collected valuable works of art and furnishings. Another historic milestone was the dispersal of the legacy of Countess Margit Berchtold. In this case, in addition to the traditional areas covered by Pandolfini, namely antique furniture and paintings, were also modern artworks and Chinese, Indian and Nepalese objects in coral and semiprecious stones. In the 1970s, Pandolfini expanded its field of activity devoting itself to ceramics, pottery and porcelain.
In the 1980s – which were feverish years for the art market – Pandolfini further expanded its areas of activity. Among the outstanding sales of these years we remember the dispersion of the furnishings from Villa Querceto in Florence and from the estate of Vigarano Mainarda from Ferrara, both belonging to the legacy of Marquis Uberto Strozzi Sacrati in 1983-84, and that of the property belonging to the Countess Tamara De Larderei, born Rucellai, in 1984-85.
Also in the 1990s the market stayed competitive, but Pandolfini managed to win the sales of collections such as those of the Antinori Buturlin family, of Dino Gavina, the Liverani Collection, of the furnishings from Villa Medici Lappeggi and from Palazzo della Gherardesca in Florence. We also remember the “Antonio, Fosco and Grato Maraini” auction and the sale of paintings, furniture and objects from the Turin house of Carlo Fruttero.
Today Pandolfini has offices in Florence, Rome and Milan. It holds about 20 auctions a year in all sectors of the market, from old masters to collectible wines. The auction on Oct. 28 will include exceptional pieces among which there is a high relief by Lorenzo Ghiberti and his workshop depicting the Madonna and Child Protected by the Mantle from about 1420, which is estimated €60,000-80,000, and a painting by Giovan Battista Spinelli, David with the Head of Goliath, estimated at €120,000-150,000. Among the works from the 19th century, there will be a bronze by Medardo Rosso, Aetas Aurea, estimated at €50,000-80,000; among the contemporary artworks will be an important work by Alberto Burri, Bianco Nero from 1952, estimated at €1-1.5 million. Among the jewels there will be an exceptional Cartier necklace in platinum, white gold and diamonds estimated at €250,000-300,000.
A separate catalog, as we mentioned already, is dedicated to the painting The Rivals by French-anglophile painter James Tissot. It carries an estimate of €600,000-1 million. In the work, which was owned by Paolo Ingegnoli, an important Italian collector of the 19th century, Tissot represented his beloved, Kathleen Newton, surrounded by admirers within the impressive winter garden full of exotic plants that he had built next to the his London studio. Tissot was a successful portraitist among the wealthy English collectors thanks to its ability to faithfully portray his models and choose poses and settings. Furthermore, he was also able to understand the market and the types of pictures that could attract different customers. Only three years after the completion of this work, Kathleen Newton died of tuberculosis; the artist sold the house, left London and returned to Paris for good.
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