The auction of Modern and Contemporary Australian Art at Christie’s on 23 September 2010 will offer a pair of rediscovered paintings of historical importance that was found in an attic and which was identified and consigned to auction through Christie’s iPhone application.
William Blamire Young, Light Horse and Artillery, 1904. Estimate: £20,000-30,000. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd 2010
The rare oil paintings by William Blamire Young celebrate the birth of the Australian army and were formerly in the ownership of its founder, Major General Edward ‘Curly’ Hutton. They are offered as a pair and are expected to realise £20,000 to £30,000 illustrated right.
The auction will offer a total of forty-eight lots including a handful of lost treasures and a number of discoveries. Estimates range from £700 up to £200,000.
The paintings by William Blamire Young were found during an attic clear out in a private house in Surrey and were due to be thrown away until the consignor asked a neighbour for advice on how to dispose of them. The neighbour, a digital developer and avid iPhone app user, used his Christie’s app to research the artist from the signature on the painting, and then sent photographs of the works through to the specialist department for a valuation. The pictures were revealed to be rare oil paintings by the artist William Blamire Young, better known for his watercolours. The works, Light Horse and Artillery, painted in 1904, celebrate the birth of the Australian army and will be offered as a pair in the sale on 23 September (estimate: £20,000-30,000). The discovery and consignment of this lot demonstrates how international clients are increasingly engaged with technology in the art market, and is one of a number of examples of Christie’s Mobile Web assisting in the buying and selling of important works of art.
Further rare and important works featured in the sale include:
John Peter Russell’s Les Aiguilles du Port-Coton, Belle-Île-en-Mer has been consigned by the artist’s descendants, and the public exhibition prior to the sale in September will be the first time the work has been seen since it was painted in the 1890s. Estimate £150,000-200,000
Arther Merric Bloomfield Boyd’s Reflected Tree. Painted in 1976, and conceived at Shoalhaven, this picture was bought off the walls of his 1977 exhibition at Fischer Fine Art in London by the present owners. Estimate £70,000-100,000
Charles Blackman’s Child is a long lost portrait of the artist’s daughter, painted in 1961, and exhibited in the artist’s first solo London exhibition that same year. The work was acquired by the present owner in a house clearance in the 1980s, and has been left to gather dust in a Surrey loft for the last twenty-five years. Estimate £15,000-20,000
Dale Frank’s Transient Ischaemic Attack Painting London 9 was bought fresh off the easel from Anna Scwartz’s stand at the Frieze Art Fair in London in 2005. Since the 1980s, Frank has been one of the most internationally shown contemporary Australian painters, and his works continue to be shown in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Estimate £4,000-6,000
Leonard William French’s Man and Woman in the Garden from 1959 is being sold by the descendants of the American publisher and collector Henry Luce III, who bought the painting in 1977. Entered by French for the Sulman Prize in 1960, the work has not been seen in Australia for a generation. Estimate £25,000-35,000
