Getty Pays Record Price for Old Master Painting

The J. Paul Getty Museum fulfilled an art world dream by buying a 16th-Century portrait by Italian Mannerist painter Pontormo for $35.2 million Wednesday afternoon at Christie’s New York. The closely watched sale ended fears that the painting, which had hung at the Frick Collection in Manhattan for 19 years, would go into a private collection and disappear from public view.

The 28 3/8-inch-by-36 1/4-inch oil by Pontormo, probably painted around 1537, is widely believed to have been the finest Old Master painting in a private American collection.

The portrait of a young man, thought to be Florentine Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, had been estimated to sell for $20 million, but it tripled the record for an Old Master painting and became the fifth most expensive work of art to sell at auction.

“This must be the most important painting on the West Coast at this stage. We just count ourselves very lucky to get it,” Getty museum director John Walsh said in a telephone interview. “If you had to choose a single portrait of the whole era of a couple of generations after Raphael, this might be it,” Walsh said.

“I’m delighted that the Getty bought the painting. It will make a great addition to their collection and to the growing art community in Los Angeles,” said Earl A. Powell, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Two paintings by Vincent van Gogh, “Irises” ($53.9 million) and “Sunflowers” ($39.9 million), and two by Picasso, “Yo Picasso” ($47.85 million) and “Acrobat and Young Harlequin” ($38.5 million), are the only artworks that have commanded higher auction prices. The former Old Master record was established in 1985, when the Getty bought Italian Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna’s “Adoration of the Magi” for $10.45 million, the highest auction price paid for any work of art at the time. The Mantegna record subsequently has been shattered 20 times by Impressionist, modern and contemporary works but never by an Old Master painting.

“It’s a great masterpiece. I’m sorry that the painting is leaving New York, but I think the Getty made a brilliant purchase. They didn’t pay too much,” said Richard Feigen, a major Old Master dealer in New York. “I was trying to get a client to buy it and loan it to the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York), but he changed his mind at the last minute.” If he had entered the competition, “he would have gone higher” than the price the Getty paid, Feigen said.

George Goldner, the Getty’s curator of drawings and acting curator of paintings, made the winning bid at the Park Avenue auction house, beating an opponent who bid by telephone. The Pontormo was the most expensive item in a sale of 143 Old Master paintings that brought a total of $45,363,890.

Though the Getty has been criticized for buying the world’s treasures--and chastised in the press when it seemed too cautious--many art aficionados had stated publicly that they hoped the Malibu institution would buy the painting because it is the only museum that could afford the portrait. If the Getty had not risen to the occasion, the Pontormo might have become the latest in a long line of masterpieces to be removed from museum walls and sold to a private collector for the benefit of a foundation.

Van Gogh’s “Irises,” purchased in 1987 by Australian collector Alan Bond, was once the jewel of Westbrook College’s gallery in Maine. The owner, John Whitney Payson, said that the painting had become too valuable to insure or loan, so he sold it to fund charitable causes including the college gallery, supported by his family foundation.

The Hal B. Wallis collection, which in 1987 was presented to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as a permanent loan, was sold for $39.6 million May 10 at Christie’s New York. The Wallis paintings were the major assets of a foundation, administered by the late film producer’s son, Brent Wallis. As art prices escalated, Brent Wallis decided that the foundation’s interests would be best served by putting the paintings up for sale. The county museum is currently embroiled in a lawsuit, demanding award of the sale proceeds, commissions earned at the sale by Christie’s and a sum equal to the appreciation of the artworks while the litigation is in progress.

The Pontormo was the property of Chauncey D. Stillman, a New York philanthropist who died in January. Stillman reportedly bought the painting around 1914 for $37,000. He put the painting on short-term loan to the Frick in 1970, then extended the loan and in 1981 wrote a letter stating his intention to donate the painting to the museum. Late in 1987, Stillman changed his mind and decided that the painting should be sold after his death to benefit the Homeland Foundation. The foundation has supported the Roman Catholic church, Catholic welfare organizations and educational institutions for 50 years. It also maintains Stillman’s estate near Amenia, N.Y.

Pontormo, who was born Jacopo Carrucci in 1494, is considered the finest 16th-Century painter in Florence after Michelangelo. With Rosso Fiorentino, Pontormo founded the Mannerist style in Italy and was the teacher of painter Agnolo Bronzino in Florence.

Walsh said that the presumed subject of the painting, Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574), who became Duke of Florence when he was only 18 years old, “has an aristocratic bearing that comes across in the body language, so that you know it’s not just a young man but a commander and yet the face is full of subtle conflict. Once you’ve seen it, it’s an image you can never forget,” he said.

The subject is a dashing young man, portrayed as an elongated, wasp-waisted figure in a beige doublet and red breeches and hat. The insignia on his cap represents Hercules and Anteus, thought to be a sign of allegiance to Alessandro, Cosimo I de’ Medici’s brother.

Christie’s identified the subject of the portrait as Cosimo I de’ Medici and Janet Cox-Rearick, an authority on Pontormo who teaches at Hunter College in New York, wrote an essay in the auction catalogue supporting the identification. Some journalists, however, have suggested that Christie’s promoted Cox-Rearick’s position because Pontormo is not as well known as the Medicis and that the identification might be a strong selling point.

While on loan to the Frick Collection, from 1970 to early this year, and during earlier loans to the Met and Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum, the painting was called “Halberdier,” referring to the halberd or lance the young warrior holds in his hand.

The identification of the subject is the sort of art historical issue that is “always open to question,” Walsh said. “It is not a closed book, but a powerful case has been made and we’ve accepted it.”

The portrait is one of a handful of Pontormos in American museums. The best known is the National Gallery’s “Portrait of Niccolo Ardinghelli.” Others include “Portrait of Maria Salviati and Child” at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, and “Portrait of Alessandra de’ Medici” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The Getty’s Pontormo will go on view in a month or so, after it has been sent to California and examined in the museum’s conservation laboratory.