Old Masters

Pictures as they hang in Swiss homes

For a long time, Old Masters were seen as a market for museums and a few connoisseurs. That is changing: collectors who have become more cautious about contemporary art are rediscovering the painting of the 16th to early 19th centuries. Portraits, still lifes, cabinet pictures and vanitas paintings now find a younger and broader audience than they did only a few years ago. What counts has stayed the same: attribution, provenance and condition decide the price, and we research thoroughly before we estimate. The pictures that come to us in Zofingen are the kind that have hung in Swiss homes for generations: Dutch and Flemish cabinet pictures of the 17th century, still lifes, landscapes and vanitas scenes. Our results show that there is a market for them: Frans Francken’s «The Art Collector» sold at the Autumn Auction 2024 for CHF 75,000, Hermann Weyer’s «Minerva Triumphing over Ignorance» for CHF 60,000 and Francken’s «Death and the Miser» for CHF 44,000.