A SENSATIONAL SALE

Hokitika Guardian, 19 May 1928, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL SALE

(United Press Association. —By Ebctrio Telegraph.—Copyright.)

LONDON, . May IS. One of the most sensational sales in the history of art took place when the Dutch and Flemish pictures belonging to the Hoi ford Collection were sold at Christies. The sum of £530,000 was previously obtained for the Holfoacl art treasures and hooks, including £166,000 for Italian pictures last July.

Christie’s was crowded, and buyers from all over the world were competing. A total of 364,084 guineas was obtained, which i.s easily a record for ■Christie’s, the bidding being at the rate of three thousand per minute.

Ten thousand guineas were paid for tlie first lot, a small Rembrandt drawing, which probably covered Robert Holford’s expenditure -on all of his pictures. The advances in values exceeded every anticipation of the experts. Rembrandt's “Portrait of a Alan with a Cleft Chin,” only thirty inches by twenty-four, sold for forty thousand guineas. Rembrandt’s “Alan with a Torch,” sold at forty-eight thousand guineas. Five of Rembrandt’s pictures brought £150,000.

Cuyp’s “View of Dordrecht” fetched twenty-five thousand guineas. A sketch by Rubens, “The Elevation of the Cross,’’ sold at 5,200 guineas. Susterman’s “Portrait of a Ncbleman” sold for 12.500 guineas. Petrus Christus’s “Portrait of a Afan” fetched fourteen thousand guineas. Sir AVilliam Berry wound up the * sensational bidding by giving thirty thousand guineas for Ahindyck’s “Portrait of Able Seaggia.”

The English and Spanish pictures in the collection are to be sold to-mor-