Dorotheum's auction week kicked off amidst high demand and soaring bids. A masterpiece of the Florentine early Renaissance, Apollonio di Giovanni's "The Battle of Pharsalos," achieved an outstanding €674,000. Originally the front piece of a wedding trunk , or cassone, the work was one of the auctions standouts.
Applause filled the auction room after the winning bid, a handsome sum of €466,600, was placed for a pair of portraits - one of a man and one of a woman - by the Antwerp School.
The illustrious Brueghel family name - in this case, Brueghel the II.- inspired a bidder to pay €417,800 for a version of the famous "Bird Trap" allegory. A still-life painting by Jean Michel Picart, one of the best-known representatives of Parisian Grand Siècle painting, sold for €393,400.
The auction, one of Dorotheum's best to date, attracted enormous international interest, with many works selling for far more than expected.
Upcoming auctions of works of art, jewellery and 19th-century paintings, the latter of which features an historic portrait of a newly engaged Elisabeth of Austria, promise to be equally exciting.
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