January 29, 2021

Sandro Botticelli's 'Young Man Holding a Roundel'  |  PHOTO: SOTHEBY'S

The 1480-era painting -- Young Man Holding a Roundel -- came up for sale as part of Sotheby's New York auction of Old Master artworks. One of the last Sandro Botticelli portraits left in private hands sold at auction for more than $92 million USD (after fees) at Sotheby's New York on Thursday morning. The identity is a mystery. It is a record for the artist and a contender for the most costly painting to sell at auction this year. It was also the second work to top the $80 million mark since Sotheby's began live streaming its auctions during the pandemic, according to a press statement, with the first being Francis Bacon's "Oresteia of Aeschylus," which sold for $84.5 million last June. "Young Man Holding a Roundel" was the star of Sotheby's "Master Paintings and Sculpture" sale.

Believed to have been produced in the late 1470s or early 1480s, Botticelli's portrait was purchased by its previous owner in 1982 for just £810,000 (a little over $1 million in today's money). Old Masters auctions are rare, and this particular masterpiece is one of only 12 surviving portraits from the hand of the Florentine painter. The painting has been loaned out and displayed at some of the world’s most visited art museums, like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Botticelli rarely produced portraits, focusing most of his career on religious scenes and paintings of classical mythology. “Young Man Holding a Roundel” depicts a young man from the waist up holding a medallion depicting a saint. The secret of the young man's identity has never been revealed, but there is speculation he belonged to the circle of people surrounding Lorenzo de Medici, a patron of the arts who particularly appreciated and supported Sandro Botticelli. Sotheby's said the painting is one of only three Botticelli portraits held by a private owner.

Christopher Apostle, the head of Sotheby's Old Masters painting department in New York, said, “This is not only an exceptional painting, it is also the epitome of beauty, and of a moment when so much of our Western civilization began. Today's result is a fitting tribute, both to the painting itself and all that it represents."