Christie's is offering a group of important and highly collectable 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), during two live auctions, Old Masters I and Old Master Paintings and Sculpture II, taking place 5 February 2025 at Rockefeller Center. The MFA has one of the world's finest collections of Netherlandish art, with holdings that span all categories of Dutch painting and include a wide range of artists. This group of almost 20 paintings - many of which have been off the market for a half a century or more - is being auctioned to fund future acquisitions that will provide further depth and better serve the evolving needs of the museum's audiences.
A Director of Old Master Paintings at Christie's, John Hawley, said: "Collectors of Old Masters have long prized works from major American institutions, but only infrequently has a group with such provenance and quality appeared on the market as these Dutch and Flemish paintings from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The MFA has one of the finest collections of Netherlandish paintings in the world and has long been at the vanguard of efforts to preserve, display and study the art of the Lowlands. The proceeds from the deaccession of these exceptional works will be used to further enrich the museum's collection in this field."
The lead lot of the MFA pictures is Bandits Leading Prisoners, an Italianate landscape by a renowned master of this type of view, Jan Both (estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000). Other highlights among the close to 20 paintings in the group include Emanuel de Witte's Nieuwe Kerk, (estimate: $400,000-600,000), an atmospheric interior view of the important 15th-century church on the Dam Square in Amsterdam; a sizeable tonal still life by Pieter Claesz. (estimate: $150,000-250,000); and a Jan Josefsz. van Goyen river view, River Landscape with a ferry and a church (estimate: 150,000-250,000).
