most expensive Old Master painting ever sold at auction – currently Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents, sold at Sotheby’s in 2002 for £49.5 million – after Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi which sold for $450 million in 2017, following a battle between two Middle Eastern bidders.Christopher Apostle of Sotheby’s believes the portrait, which remains in perfect condition after 550 years, is not only “the greatest Botticelli still in private hands, but also one of the finest Renaissance paintings in private ownership”.
Examples of Botticelli’s work do appear for sale – about 20 so far this century of mainly religious subjects – but, although he made superb portraits, there are only a dozen or so accepted as being by his hand, and most are in.
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