El Greco, a youthful masterpiece up for auction in London

An early masterpiece by El Greco (pseudonym of Domínikos Theotokópoulos, Candia, 1541 – Toledo, 1614), recently returned with two more paintings to the heirs of Julius and Camilla Priester, will be auctioned at Christie’s in London on 7 December with an estimate between 800 thousand and 1,200,000 pounds. One of the artist’s earliest surviving portraits and one of the last still in private hands, El Greco’s “Portrait of a Gentleman” (1570) is charged with that uncompromising intensity that would have defined the master’s revolutionary idiom, securing his reputation as one of the great visionaries of modern art El Greco’s painting will be offered together with an extremely rare trompe l’oeil church interior by Emmanuel de Witte (estimate £ 500,000-800,000) and a powerful portrait of the Frankfurt Master (estimate 40,000 -60,000 pounds). These works highlight the quality and significance of the collection assembled by Julius (1870-1954) and Camilla Priester (1885-1962), passionate Viennese art collectors who had the entirety of their collection seized by the Nazis between 1938 and 1944. Julius Priester – an industrialist involved in Petroleumgesellschaft Galizin and who had commercial interests in the energy sector – made great efforts to track down and recover his missing collection after the war. This search was continued after his death by his widow and later by the couple’s heirs. Only recently has it borne fruit with the return of some works. El Greco’s masterpiece, which was featured in the Greco 2019/2020 exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, will be exhibited for the first time before being sold at Christie’s in New York from today until November 11, before being exhibited at Hong Kong from 25 to 29 November; de Witte will be exhibited at Christie’s in Amsterdam from 1 to 3 November. The three works will be brought together for the London pre-sale exhibition to be held from 3 to 7 December.