SOTHEBY’S TO SELL TWENTY-TWO PAINTINGS FROM GETTY COLLECTION

Sotheby’s New York will sell a group of twenty-two Old Master pictures, chiefly Dutch, Flemish, and British, from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles on January 25 and 26, 2007, reports the Art Newspaper. The works range from a damaged male portrait attributed to Dirck Jacobsz to a typical Jan Berstraaten winter landscape. “I don’t think any of these pictures have ever been shown in the galleries since the Getty opened,” says Scott Schaefer, the museum’s paintings curator. Several “were among Mr. Getty’s early purchases done with more of an eye to furnishing a room rather than strengthening a picture gallery. I don’t expect we’ll get an enormous amount of money for them.” The upper estimate for the group is $1.95 million. Whereas most US museums sell art without consultation, Mr Schaefer approached other Los Angeles institutions to ask if they had any interest in a long-term loan before offering the works to Sotheby’s.