Five acquisitions, five prices that rewrote the history of collecting. Between February and July 2026 the rooms of Christie’s and Sotheby’s staged a sequence of record auctions for Old Masters rarely seen in recent decades: an unpublished drawing by Michelangelo, a bronze Laocoön that had been off the market for a century and a half, the last Canaletto of the Bucintoro series still in private hands, a “ghost” Rembrandt long mistaken for an anonymous Dutch master, and Artemisia Gentileschi who, sale after sale, reclaims the place she deserves in art history.
Key points
- Michelangelo’s preparatory drawing for the Libyan Sibyl sold for $27.2 million at Christie’s New York on 5 February 2026, a new world record for a work on paper by the artist.
- The Hamilton Laocoön bronze, cast by Auguste-Jean-Marie Carbonneaux, reached £13.6 million at Sotheby’s, far above the estimate of £2–3 million.
- Canaletto’s Bucintoro was knocked down for $30.535 million at Christie’s New York, the last example of the series still in a private collection.
- Rembrandt’s “Let the Little Children Come to Me”, after restoration and new attribution, sold for £8 million at Sotheby’s London.
- Artemisia Gentileschi’s self-portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria set a new record for the artist, selling for $5.687 million.
Record sales of Old Master works at the start of 2026
The first six months of the year produced a series of results that experts describe as unprecedented for the Old Masters segment. Three of the five most significant sales were concentrated in a single day, 4 and 5 February 2026, at Christie’s New York, while Sotheby’s responded with two equally sensational coups between the neoclassical bronze and the Rembrandt discovery of the summer.
Michelangelo’s preparatory drawing sets a new record for works on paper
On 5 February 2026 Christie’s New York sold the star lot of its Old Master and British Drawings sale: a double-sided drawing by Michelangelo Buonarroti, recto with a study for the foot of the Libyan Sibyl and verso with a study for a kneeling leg. The sheet was sold for $27.2 million, a new world record for a work on paper by the artist. It is a preparatory sketch for the most famous fresco in the Sistine Chapel, commissioned by Pope Julius II between 1508 and 1512, and before this sale it was completely unknown to the market.
Canaletto’s Bucintoro painting reaches an exceptional price
The previous day, 4 February 2026, again at Christie’s New York, another chapter in the market for Venetian art took place: Venice, the Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day, a work by Canaletto, was sold for $30,535,000 (hammer at 26 million). The canvas depicts the culminating moment of the Sensa festival, when the doge boarded the Bucintoro to symbolically celebrate the marriage of Venice to the sea. According to Andrew Fletcher, head of Christie’s Old Masters department, it is the last known interpretation of the subject still in private hands, after the version painted for British Prime Minister Robert Walpole, which had already set the artist’s record at £31,935,000 in London in July 2025.
Artemisia Gentileschi reaches a new auction milestone
In the same New York session on 4 February, Christie’s sold Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria for $5,687,000, against an estimate of $2.5–3.5 million. It is one of only five known self-portraits by the artist, probably the earliest, painted between 1613 and 1620 during her Florentine period. The work was acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which in the same session also acquired the painter’s Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy. Since 2022 the painting had been on loan to the Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo. The price exceeds the artist’s previous record, the Lucretia sold by Artcurial in Paris in 2019 for $4.7 million, by about $437,000.
Sotheby’s highlights: Laocoön bronze and Rembrandt restoration
While Christie’s dominated February, Sotheby’s responded with two lots that rewrote the rules of the game: an eighteenth-century copy capable of exceeding all expectations and a painting that had remained anonymous for decades.
The Hamilton Laocoön bronze casting exceeds estimates
In Sotheby’s Old Masters evening sale, the headline was not an original but an authorial copy: the Hamilton Laocoön, a monumental bronze two and a half metres high cast in Paris in 1817 by the sculptor Auguste-Jean-Marie Carbonneaux, one of only four life-size authorial replicas ever made of the famous Vatican group. The work had passed through the collections of William Beckford and the Duke of Hamilton and had not returned to the market for almost one hundred and fifty years. Estimated at “only” £2–3 million and contested for over twenty minutes by four bidders, the sculpture was sold for £13.6 million, equivalent to $18.1 million.
Rembrandt’s “Let the Little Children Come to Me” revealed and sold
A very young Christ surrounded by a heterogeneous crowd, including a figure with a turban later overpainted as a man with a Dutch cap to “normalize” the scene: the decade-long restoration of Let the Little Children Come to Me revealed not only the hand of a young Rembrandt van Rijn, but also a message of religious tolerance that is strikingly topical. Identified in 2014 by dealer Jan Six and originally attributed generically to the “Dutch school” (purchased for €1.5 million), the painting was sold by Sotheby’s London on 1 July 2026 for £8 million, over $10 million. It is not the artist’s record, still firmly held by the Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo sold by Christie’s in 2009 for $33,194,694, but it remained the top lot of an evening with more than ten new auction records and a 160% increase compared to the July 2025 session.
Provenance and market impact of the leading Old Masters
Behind every record figure lies a story of ownership, restoration or rediscovery that explains why the market reacted with such intensity.
The ownership history of Michelangelo’s drawing
Although Michelangelo ordered his friend Leonardo Sellaio to burn all the preparatory cartoons for the Sistine Chapel, some sketches survived. The work probably belonged to Daniele da Volterra, passed to his pupil Michele degli Alberti, documented between 1535 and 1568, before entering the collection of Armand François Louis de Mestral de Saint-Saphorin in Switzerland; inherited by his grandson Armand Louis Henri de Mestral, the work then passed to the current owner. Drawings of the same subject are now held in museums such as the Met in New York and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Ownership and increase in value of Canaletto’s Bucintoro
Commissioned around 1754 by the King family, later Earls of Lovelace, the canvas remained in the same collection for almost two centuries before changing hands in 1937 at Sotheby’s London for just £2,100, again in 1973 for £280,000 and finally in 2005 at Christie’s for £11,432,000: an escalation that the New York result takes to a new and dizzying chapter. The 4 February sale pushed the entire New York Old Masters auction to a total of $54.1 million, the best result for the category in over a decade in the city.
The restoration of the Rembrandt painting and its message
Painted in oil on canvas, 103.5 x 86 centimetres, left unfinished by the master and completed by an unknown hand years later, the painting had already been exhibited after its new attribution at the Young Rembrandt exhibition between the Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden and the Ashmolean in Oxford in 2019–2020. The restoration that brought to light the message of religious tolerance is what transformed a work bought for €1.5 million as a generic “Dutch school” into one of the most talked-about lots of the summer of 2026, confirming how research into provenance and attribution can multiply the market value of an Old Master work.
FAQ
What made the sale of Michelangelo’s Libyan Sibyl drawing significant?
It set a new world record for a work on paper by Michelangelo, selling for $27.2 million, and it was completely unknown to the market before the auction.
Why was the Hamilton Laocoön bronze important in Sotheby’s 2026 auction?
It sold for £13.6 million, far above estimates, and is one of only four life-size authorial replicas made in 1817.
What discoveries did the restoration of Rembrandt’s “Let the Little Children Come to Me” bring?
The restoration revealed the original composition, including a figure with a turban, and a message of religious tolerance, leading to the new attribution to the young Rembrandt.
What makes the Bucintoro by Canaletto sold by Christie’s noteworthy?
It is the last work in the Bucintoro series still in private hands and has shown extraordinary growth in value over the decades, from £2,100 in 1937 to $30.5 million in 2026.
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