Sotheby’s will collaborate with fashion designer and former pop star Victoria Beckham on an intriguing exhibition of old master portraits in London.
The 16 works, including canvases by Peter Paul Rubens and Cranach the Elder, will be on display at Beckham’s Dover Street clothing store in London until tomorrow. All are to be featured in Sotheby’s Old Master Evening Sale on July 4.
Victoria Beckham said: “It was my first visit to the Frick in New York last year, that really opened my eyes to Old Masters, and is where my fascination began.
“To have now been given the opportunity to start to learn about them with the incredible team at Sotheby’s and have these portraits hanging within my retail space is literally a dream come true. I hope their installation in such a contemporary setting is as inspiring to my customers as it is to me.”
While Beckham has previously exhibited works by contemporary artists in her store, this is the first time old masters have hung in the space. Her championing of these works reflects a growing demand, following on from the $450.3m set for Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi last year and the $180m paid for two portraits by Rembrandt in a private sale in 2015.
Chloe Stead, old master specialist at Sotheby’s, said: “Portraiture is a genre of art the appeal of which has endured throughout the centuries, so it’s great to be able to shine a spotlight on all the tremendous history and romance that can be wrapped up in a single face.
“I hope, that in presenting Victoria’s selection of portraits by the Old Masters in this wonderfully unexpected, modern and sleek space we will be able to participate in some small way in the dialogue surrounding the magic of painted portraiture, and its enduring appeal, even in our modern age of selfie-overload!”
