Christie’s London is preparing to send another trove of works amassed by the late Sam Josefowitz to the auction block on December 5. Titled The Sam Josefowitz Collection: Graphic Masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn – Part III, it follows the sales of Part I and Part II over the last two years, which netted the house a combined £13.5 million.
This time around, 101 prints by the Dutch master will be up for grabs during Christie’s Classic Week. “Rembrandt’s etchings were an enduring passion for the late Sam Josefowitz, whose collection of the Dutch master’s graphic works remains unparalleled by any other 20th-century collector,” the house said in a statement. “This sale presents the final opportunity to acquire some of the rarest and most moving graphic works by Rembrandt.”
Among the top lots going under the hammer next month are a portrait titled Arnout Tholinx, Inspector (circa 1656), which has a high estimate of £2.5 million. “This print has always been considered a great rarity, and this is the last impression in private hands,” Tim Schmelcher, a prints and multiples specialist at Christie’s London, told ARTnews. “Twelve impressions of this work were made in total, and this is the only version not in a public collection. It is arguably the most beautiful, or at least on par with the one in the British Museum. There is also another impression in the Rothschild collection at the Louvre in Paris. The one we are selling has for centuries been considered one of the unicorns of print collecting because it is so rare. It’s also serendipitous that this particular sheet was offered exactly 101 years ago at Christie’s, given there are 101 lots in the sale. That was the last time this subject appeared in public.”
The current record for a Rembrandt print at auction is held by Christ presented to the people (“Ecce Homo”), sold at Christie’s London in 2018 for £2,648,750.
Josefowitz was originally from Lithuania and traveled to the US in the 1930s to study industrial engineering. He and his brother David set up the Concert Hall Society, a mail-order subscription club that sold records, vitamins, and books, a business model that preceded Jeff Bezos’ early Amazon iteration. The booming business furnished Josefowitz with an impressive art collection spanning late-19th-century symbolism and the Pont-Aven School to Diego Giacometti furniture and prints. Much of the work was sold before he died, with 17 paintings and 84 prints going to the Indianapolis Museum of Art for a reported $30 million. A year after his death in 2015, Christie’s Paris sold 35 works for €2.7 million.
ARTnews asked Schmelcher about the health of the Old Masters print market. “Christie’s last Old Masters print sale, which was in March and online, totaled £3.6 million and sold 94 percent by lot, showing that this category is very healthy.” He added that “traditional, specialized collectors” are bidding on these prints, alongside buyers with “more eclectic collecting habits.”
Christie’s tested demand for Rembrandt prints in October, when it sold the first part of Klaus Hegewisch’s collection, including the Dutch master’s etching and drypoint, The Three Trees (1643). It sold for £825,500, almost three times its high estimate and the auction’s second-highest price. On the night, Rembrandt’s Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513) realized £304,800 (high estimate: £120,000) and his Adam and Eve (1504) took £279,400 (high estimate: £180,000). The auction totaled £8,935,720.
The print market has been a rare bright spot in the art market over the last couple of years. According to the most recent Art Basel and UBS report, spending on prints and multiples, most of which are priced under $50,000, saw a 3 percent rise, reaching a market share of 7 percent. Prints also now account for a quarter of high net worth collectors’ holdings, marking an increase of 16 percent on 2023.
