This once lost masterpiece could fetch $35 million at auction

Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens’ visceral biblical scene of Salome with the beheaded Saint John the Baptist, believed to have been lost for over two centuries, is among 10 Baroque-era artworks going on sale at a New York auction in January.

The painting, which Rubens made around 1609, was misattributed for 220 years after it was sold into a private French collection in 1768, according to a Sotheby’s spokesperson. After its “rediscovery” in the 1980s, it was sold for a then-record-breaking $5.5 million in 1998. Now, it is estimated to be worth more than six times that, with auction house Sotheby’s expecting bids of up to $35 million.

Titled “Salome presented with the severed head of St. John the Baptist,” it is the star lot in a rare collection of paintings that also includes works by French artists Valentin de Boulogne and Georges de la Tour and Italian painter Orazio Gentileschi. The Baroque style, recognized for its heavy shadows and dramatic contrasts of light and dark, flourished around Europe in the early 17th century and was rooted in the work of Italian artists such as Caravaggio.

The 10 works come from the collection of Mark Fisch, a trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and former New Jersey judge Rachel Davidson; the couple filed for divorce earlier this year. Though museum curators rarely comment on auction sales, the chair of the Met’s European Paintings department, Keith Christiansen, praised the artworks’ “sustained level of quality.”

“These are Baroque paintings that speak with a contemporary voice,” he said in a press statement. “Their modernity lies in their probing, psychological dimension combined with dramatic flair, realized with brilliantly descriptive brushwork.”

Paintings from the collection, which was amassed over three decades, have been exhibited at the Met as well The National Gallery in London and the Prado in Madrid, according to Sotheby’s.

Bold and bloody scenes

Should Rubens’ depiction of Salome exceed its high estimate, it will count among the most expensive Old Masters works ever sold, joining Rubens’ later painting “Lot and His Daughters,” which sold in 2016 for £44.9 million (then over $58 million) at Christie’s in London. Works by Sandro Botticelli, Rembrandt and Leonardo da Vinci top the list, with highly publicized sales in the past decade led by the latter’s $450.3-million “Salvator Mundi,” whose intrigue has only grown amid legal disputes and the painting’s disappearance from public view.

According to Sotheby’s, Rubens’ panel of Salome may have been made for a Spanish patron and was recorded in Spanish royal inventories during the latter half of the 17th century, though little is known about the commission.

In the Bible, Salome is a young woman who requests the head of St. John the Baptist after he is executed for condemning her mother’s unlawful marriage to Herod Antipas. In Rubens’ gruesome scene, Salome is resplendent in red and gold as she is presented with the preacher’s head, his mouth agape on the platter and his body sprawled below.

“Rubens’ depiction of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist … is a work in which the still young artist fearlessly explores the violent and sexual dynamics of the Biblical narrative like some pre-cinematic Martin Scorsese,” said Christiansen.

Elsewhere in the collection, other prominent female figures from the Bible take the spotlight. Gentileschi’s sensual portrait “Penitent Saint Mary Magdalene” is estimated to sell for up to $6 million, while Guilio Cesare Procaccini’s “Judith and Holofernes,” which could fetch up to $1.5 million, depicts another famous beheading scene — this time the widow Judith with the head of war tyrant Holofernes.

The paintings from the Fisch Davidson collection will travel to Los Angeles, Hong Kong and London this fall before exhibiting in New York just ahead of the sale.

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