Held by Christie's on December 4 2018, the sale of Old
Masters/New Scholars: Works of Art for the benefit of the Rugby School realised a total of 14,794,125 pounds, far exceeding all pre-sale expectations
with 83% sold by lot and 99% sold by value.
Over 40% of the lots were
sold to or directly underbid by online bidders on Christie's LiveTM while the
star of the sale, Lucas van Leyden's very rare drawing showing a young man standing,
induced fierce competition between three bidders before reaching11,483,750
pounds, smashing its pre-sale estimate of 1.5 million GBP.
Setting not only a new world record price for the artist at
auction, this result made van Leyden only the second Old Master – joining Raphael – with a
drawing selling over 10 million GBP. Meanwhile four auction records were set, including a new
record price at auction of 332,750 pounds for a work on paper by Sir Edward Poynter
P.R.A..
The Rugby School will be using a portion of the proceeds to
create a newly designated museum space on the School site for that part of itscollection
which is intrinsic to the history of the School and which was not part of the
auction, thus in order to ensure that the remaining collections and the School
archives are correctly stored and preserved, and are also appropriately
displayed for the wider benefit of the Rugbeian community. The School's
Governing Body will now consider how to ensure the rest of the proceeds are
used to benefit the School's current and future students in keeping with the
benefactors' wishes.
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