Munnings Painting Tops Sporting Art Auction
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The topped price painting to sell at the auction. (Sporting Art Auction photo)
Sir Alfred James Munnings' signed painting Lord Astor's Broodmare and Foal brought the top price of $207,000, including buyer premium, at the third annual Sporting Art Auction, held Nov. 18 at Keeneland.
Gross sales for the auction, a collaborative effort between Keeneland, the world's largest Thoroughbred auction house, and Cross Gate Gallery of Lexington, totaled $2,534,370.
This year's auction featured 174 lots representing fine sporting art, American paintings and sculpture from renowned masters as well as new artists. Eighty-two percent of the pieces offered in the auction sold, with more than 37% of those works bringing final bids at or above their listed high estimated value.
The British-born Munnings is recognized as one of the two great masters of sporting art, along with George Stubbs. He painted the featured work, a 13 1/2" x 16" oil on board, in the 1930s, when he was adding to his numerous commissions for William Waldorf, 2nd Viscount Astor.
Two other pieces in the auction also fetched six-figure prices. Andre Pater's Early Summer, an oil on canvas depiction of cattle drinking from a watering hole, sold for $161,000. The painting Longchamp Paddock, an acrylic on canvas by American sporting artist LeRoy Neiman, sold for $138,000.
LORD ASTOR'S BROODMARE AND FOAL