Affordable Old Master Paintings from the Age of Vermeer
Journalists love writing about the millions of guilders people pay for old masters. Naturally, art dealers Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder are also active at the top end of the market. But to prove that good-quality seventeenth-century paintings are not the preserve of the super-rich, in the spring of 1996 Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder organized an exhibition of old master paintings in the f 25,000 to f 250.000 price range. Many collectors came to view the exhibition and some thirty works changed hands. Various museums also acquired paintings, including Delft's Prinsenhof museum. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf published a piece by Thea Detiger on 24 August 1996 about the exhibition and the Delft museum purchase. It gives a good impression of the Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder perspective on this section of the old master market. This is what she wrote:
As the Dutch saying goes, fish can be bought too dear. But when it comes to old masters, the opposite is true. Fish, particularly dead fish, reduce the price of seventeenth-century paintings considerably. And recently it meant that Delft's Prinsenhof museum was able to purchase a brilliant piscine still life by Abraham Vosmaer (1618 - after 1660) at a knockdown price. The painting is now part of the museum's permanent presentation of still life paintings. Hague art dealers Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder, who sold the panel, have long been at pains to point out that it is not just the name and the subject, but also the condition and artistic quality of a painting that counts. Sometimes it pays to find out what contemporaries thought about a painting.
"In the seventeenth century people had no problem with dead fish. And today, most Japanese have no objections either. Fish is a national symbol in Japan. Recently, a Japanese client was enthralled by these seventeenth-century still lifes of fish and insisted on buying one. His business advisor warned him not to. They were supposedly less easy to sell. Better off buying a still life of flowers. But a floral still life of the same quality would be ten times as expensive. Take Abraham van Beyeren. A still life of flowers by this artist costs over a million guilders, and a still life with fruit costs between f 500,000 and f 1 million. However, as soon as there's a dead fish in the painting, the price plummets to f 100,000 or f 200,000."
Checklist
To determine the price-quality ratio of a seventeenth-century painting, John and Willem Jan Hoogsteder have a list of six key points ranging from 1) artist's name; 2) subject; 3) fashion or taste; 4) artistic quality; 5) condition and 6) arthistorical information. The identity of the painter is the principal consideration. How famous is he, how highly are his works valued, and how rare and desirable are his paintings? "There are three seventeenth-century mega-stars", says Willem Jan: "Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans Hals. Their work hardly appears on the market anymore. Then there are around 80 three-star painters, topping the list Saenredam and De Hoogh. Their work can vary from a few hundred thousand guilders to several million. Only museums and millionaires can afford these. Private individuals looking for a seventeenth-century painting for the price of a boat or a second home (f 20.000 to a few hundred thousand) enter the two-star painter category of which there are around three hundred in the seventeenth century." The artist's name largely determines the price. That is not unreasonable. After all, the artist has earned that name. It gives the buyer a guarantee. However, it is doubtful whether the price difference between major and minor painters is always justified. "A southern landscape by Jan Both is ten times as expensive as one by Willem de Heusch. Both may be a more skillful painter, but is his work really ten times better?"A second point to consider is the subject of the picture, which is closely connected to the third, current fashions and tastes. Unlike abstract art, in which aesthetic quality is a major consideration, the subject matter in a seventeenth-century painting is a direct indicator for the price. A river landscape of a certain quality and by an artist with a particular reputation may yield only half the price of a winter landscape, while an 'ordinary' landscape without any special characteristics may fetch just a third. A portrait of a man by Nicolaes Maes may cost f 35,000; but a portrait of a lady can come to f 45,000 and even more for a child. A genre piece by this artist, such as the Lace Worker, was recently purchased by the Mauritshuis for f 1.3 million. Hoogsteder put the auction record for a Saftleven, f 350,000 for a tiny picture of a charming kitten, down to the subject matter. They have a cow and a small goat by the same master for f 58,000.