Exceptional art from Private Collections
Exhibition
DICKINSON ANNOUNCES ITS FIRST EVER EXHIBITION OF RENAISSANCE SCULPTURE
FORMA VIVA
Italian Sculpture 1400 – 1800
17 June – 18 July 2024
After over 30 years as a leading fine art gallery specialising in Old Master and Impressionist paintings, Simon C. Dickinson, Ltd is expanding into the field of Old Master Sculpture with its first ever exhibition devoted to Renaissance Sculpture. The show features re-discovered works by blue-chip Renaissance artists including Luca della Robbia and Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Simon Dickinson, Chairman, says ‘At a time when there are fewer galleries dealing in this field than ever before and the auction houses seem to be taking a step back, we have decided to take a step forward.’
The exhibition will include several re-discovered masterpieces including Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s bronze Matilda of Canossa (c. 1633), one of the last remaining casts of this bronze left in private hands, which is being offered with an asking price of $2 million.
Among the other highlights is Luca della Robbia’s Portrait of a Youth (c. 1435-40). Defined as one of the fathers of Renaissance art, Luca della Robbia was among the protagonists of the rebirth of terracotta sculpture. Portrait of a Youth is an extraordinary surviving example, and offers international collectors a chance to acquire one of the last works by the artist outside museum ownership.
The most valuable work in the exhibition is Massimiliano Soldani Benzi’s The Lamentation of Christ (c. 1708), which is being offered for $2.5 million. The Lamentation of Christ is without doubt one of the artist’s most beloved subjects, and it exemplifies the thematic profoundness of Florentine plastic arts between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Matilda of Canossa, c. 1633
Simon Dickinson says ‘It was only natural that when my son Milo Dickinson joined Dickinson as our new managing director last year that he wished to introduce more sculpture to the gallery. Milo had run the Old Master Sculpture sales at Christie’s for many years and has deep expertise and experience in this field. The exhibition is likely to be one of the greatest showings of Renaissance Sculpture in a London gallery this century.’
Luca della Robbia, Portrait of a Youth, c. 1435-40
The exhibition is at Simon C. Dickinson Ltd, 58 Jermyn Street, London, and will run from 17 June to 18 July 2024.
Simon C. Dickinson, Ltd. is one of the world’s leading agents and dealers in fine art, focusing on Old Masters and Impressionist art, with a turnover of over $65 million in 2023.
About Us
Established in 1993, for the last thirty years Dickinson has been one of the world’s leading private art galleries handling exceptional works of art across categories from Old Masters to Impressionist and Modern art. Dickinson’s philosophy is to offer collectors the opportunity to buy masterpieces of Western art from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century, providing the provenance and scholarly background to each painting and sculpture, and advising on framing, hanging and all other aspects of collecting.
Dickinson has close connections both to leading private collectors and institutions worldwide and we have sold to over thirty museums internationally, such as the National Gallery, London, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
Founder and Chairman, Simon Dickinson is known for his famously discerning eye for paintings, and has discovered works by Botticelli, Titian, Rubens and Constable and many others in a career lasting more than fifty years. Simon is a passionate collector and advocate for Old Master Paintings.
Dickinson has recently opened a new chapter with the arrival of Milo Dickinson as Managing Director. Echoing the career of his father, Milo joined from Christie’s where he worked for over a decade in several leading roles in both the Old Master Paintings and European Sculpture departments. A widely respected art expert and enthusiast, Milo is on the Steering Committee for the National Gallery Young Ambassadors and on the Board of the Friends of the Bargello Museum.
Dickinson is now a second-generation family business, with father and son, Simon and Milo Dickinson uniting to create a gallery combining unrivalled and passionate art expertise and a unique understanding of the ever-changing art market.
Dickinson has access to artworks which are rarely available on the public market and will continue to be the first stop for art lovers and collectors who wish to acquire works from private collections in a discreet and professional fashion.
Historic & Notable Sales
Dickinson has led the private art market for over thirty years and helped form many significant private art collections as well as develop the collections of some of the leading museums in the world. Dickinson has sold paintings by blue-chip artists from Titian to Picasso, from van Gogh to Lucian Freud.
Dickinson has connections with most major institutions and has sold artworks to the Getty Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the National Gallery, London, Louvre Abu Dhabi, LACMA, the National Museums of Scotland, the National Gallery of Washington, the Kimbell Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum Bojimans Van Beuningen and many others.