A record was set at Christie’s today for an Adrien de Vries sculpture–one that was withdrawn from sale in 2011 because it lacked an export license–and the winning bidder was the Rijksmuseum.
The Mannerist sculpture, which is widely recognized as a masterpiece by the 17th century artist known as the “Dutch Michaelangeloâ€, was won by the museum after a tense three-way phone bidding battle that lasted four minutes and captivated the audience at Christie’s Rockefeller Center saleroom in New York.
The final price, including the premium, was $27,885,000, or £17,743,735.
Christie’s crowed in its press release: “The excellent results of the Bacchic Figure Supporting the Globe reassert the continuing momentum of the masterpiece market, which has gone from strength to strength throughout the course of 2014 at Christie’s.”
I’ll say. Here’s one measure of art-world inflation. In summer 2011, when the piece was called Mythological Figure Supporting the Globe, it was on the block in London and estimated to fetch £5-8 million, or $8- to 12.8 million. This time, in “The Exceptional Sale,” it was estimated at $15- to $25 million.
I tell the story of this sculpture, found after 300 years in a garden, here, in my piece on the Old Master sculpture market, which I wrote for Art & Auction.
More details about the piece, including provenance, are in the lot info at Christie’s. And here is  much more about the piece.
Christie’s made no reference to the sculpture’s past difficulties with export authorities, so somehow that must have been resolved.
Last month, when Christie’s was promoting the piece as a record-buster, it said:
The current world auction record for European sculpture was set in 2003 when Christie’s sold a parcel-gilt and silvered bronze roundel depicting Mars, Venus, Cupid, and Vulcan, Mantuan, circa1480-1500, for £6.9 million. Prior to that, the most valuable early European sculpture was The Dancing Fawn, the most recent work by de Vries to be auctioned, which was sold to the Getty for £6.8 million in 1989. Thought to date to circa 1615, it is smaller than the bronze offered today and was neither signed nor dated.
That £6.8 million would be about £16 million today, or about $25 million.
 Photo Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s