"Mai"'s £50 Million Price Questioned
U.K. art historian Neil Jeffares is questioning the record £50 million (about $60 million) paid for Joshua Reynolds' Portrait of Mai by the National Portrait Gallery (London) and the Getty Museum. The Telegraph quotes Jeffares: “The £50 million was far higher than any other Reynolds has achieved and needs to be justified. This is public money and you’ve got to make sure it is spent prudently. There’s no evidence of prudence.… The price should be seen to be justified, not that it is unjustifiable.”
The National Portrait Gallery's half of the price included a £10 million grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, which receives funds from the National Lottery.
The £50 million was requested by the seller, Irish billionaire John Magnier. The U.K. Reviewing Committee then conducted an "independent valuation" that supported the figure. Both the Reviewing Committee and the Arts Council England have refused Jeffares' requests for details on the painting's valuation.
Jeffares said: "Catapulting Reynolds into the stratosphere of Old Masters such as Raphael or Rubens will lead to inflation in the price of other pictures by Reynolds, pushing them out of reach of other UK museums and galleries."
Comments
This is another case of trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Undoubtedly with the fame that Portrait of Mai has received in the media, academia (FT's letter from leading academics) and by virtue of being bought by the esteemed NPG and the Getty I would say it was dead certain the valuation of Mai today would far exceed £50 million. I would even hazard a guess and say the valuation today would far exceed £100 million.
In William's previous blog titled
"TWO QUESTIONS ABOUT REYNOLDS' "PORTRAIT OF MAI"' there is an extensive discussion both by William and in the comments section about valuation. Both are worth a read.
The last time that the UK had a chance to buy Mai in 2001 it messed up over price.
From the FT:
"In 2001, the Howard family offered the portrait for sale to Tate to clear inheritance tax debts. Nicholas Serota, Tate director at the time, tried to agree a private treaty purchase, with funding from a National Lottery-backed heritage fund.
He failed when the fund would not back a raised bid, setting off a wrangle that endures to this day about who owns “Portrait of Omai” and what it is worth. Tate could have secured it for about £6mn and Serota, now chair of Arts Council England, regrets it still: “I felt we lost over a quarter of a million difference. Look at the price now.”'
The UK could have owned all of Mai in 2001 for £6 million and here we are today only owning half and that too for £ 25 million.
Regarding the inflation of prices of Reynolds pictures-this is a given. But this will only happen for the very best of Reynolds and that to specifically full lengths. Not for the run of the mill stuff that was churned out en masse by Reynolds studio-which all erroneously consider to be by Reynolds. This will not affect galleries because all the best full lengths are already in public ownership. If one studies the Waterhouse list of Reynolds 38 best full lengths over 90 percent are already out of private ownership.
Jeffares says this process will capitulate Reynolds into the stratosphere of Old Masters such as Raphael or Rubens. So? This is where he should be.
Jeffares in 2014 in his review of Hallet's Reynolds wrote:
(https://neiljeffares.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/reynolds-redux/)
Reynolds "may never have been Raphael or Titian, but at times he could paint at a very high level indeed: the National Gallery’s Captain Robert Orme, sensitively analysed in the book and reproduced on the cover, is surely one of the great eighteenth-century European portraits."
I agree. The times when Reynolds is at his best and at the height of his powers on the canvas he is absolutely fabulous. Mai is but one instance (there are others like Orme, Philip Gell, Lady Worsley, Earl of Carlisle and the Marlborough family etc) and when Reynolds reaches for the stars so will his prices!
LOL.
"Jeffares says this process will capitulate Reynolds into the stratosphere of Old Masters such as Raphael or Rubens. So? This is where he should be."
Raphael and Rubens were revolutionaries in their times, and inarguably altered the course of Western art history, even down to today.
Reynolds trodded well-worn tracks, beautifully. But his light is a black dwarf compared to the others you cite.
My two cents.
Reynolds is hugely important.
As Jackie Wullschläger says in the FT:
Reynolds 'brought huge ambition to British art, founded the Royal Academy, and made painting central to Georgian cultural life.'
'Reynolds matters to British history because he chronicled, and contributed to, a period of determining change — capitalism, commercialism, the emerging public sphere. As Georgian England came to dominate global trade, its new wealth offered unprecedented chances for social mobility. “Mai” was part of this; so were Reynolds’ depictions of liberated women...'
She states the backcloth to his work was the sense of a changing country.
Specifically regarding Reynolds skills as an artist: when at the top of his game, he was also an absolutely fantastic painter.
Neil Jeffares in his same review states that Reynolds 'still towers high above his competitors: Cotes might have given him a run for his money, and Gainsborough produced some great things too..'
When Reynolds is at his best he is soo good! Great!
And yes when this happens Reynolds does reach for the stars (Raphael, Rubens, Titian etc) and so will his prices (for these exceptional works.)
To be frank, I have always belived that the British were a culture of letters, not fine arts. This is starkly evident when contrasted with the fine arts traditions of the Low Countries, France, Spain and Italy.
I'm sure someone will have a flay knife out for me for this.
Hi Ted,
I do believe that Reynolds ranks as high as Turner and Constable but for different reasons.
To understand why I recommend reading 'Reynolds' (1973) by EK Waterhouse. He in the introduction explains so much more eloquently (than I ever could!) the genius of Reynolds and why he is so important in the pantheon of European and British artists.