Altdorfer Landscape, Unseen for 70 Years, Could Fetch $6.7M at Sotheby's

By Tom Whitfield

A Renaissance landscape by Albrecht Altdorfer, hidden in a private Swiss collection for roughly 70 years, goes to auction at Sotheby's London on December 9, with an estimate of $3 million to $6.7 million (£3 million to £5 million), The Guardian reports.

The painting, made around 1520, carries a characteristically long title: A Thickly Wooded Landscape With a Rainbow Behind the Trees and a Distant Outcrop to the Right Beneath a Cloud-Laden Sky. Altdorfer, often described as Europe's first "pure landscape oil artist," is credited with producing some of the earliest Western landscape paintings of their kind. Experts identified the work earlier this year. It is only the third such landscape painting attributed to him.

George Gordon, co-chair of Sotheby's worldwide old masters department, called it "one of the most exciting discoveries imaginable in our field." New Yorkers can judge for themselves: the painting goes on view at Sotheby's from November 7 to 19 before it travels to London.

A discovery is not a sale, of course. The estimate spans a wide band, and the market for old masters has been uneven in recent seasons. December 9 will test the claim.

What happened to the stolen Picasso engravings?

French police have recovered six engravings by Pablo Picasso and arrested seven suspects connected to the theft, the Belga News Agency reports.

The facts are concrete. At just before 2 a.m. on October 2, two people broke into a restaurant in Mougins, a hilltop village on the French Riviera where Picasso once lived, and took the original engravings hanging in a private room. They fled by car with help from accomplices.

The engravings, made in the early 1930s, are reportedly in excellent condition. They belong to the restaurant owner and carry an estimated value above €100,000 ($112,400).

Asked whether the restaurant should keep exhibiting the works at all, lieutenant-colonel Guillaume Plaidy told AFP it is "an obligation to continue exhibiting art today." And if anything else is stolen: "we will track them down, and we will find them."

A confident promise. Recovery rates for stolen art are historically poor; this case is the exception that proves the policing, not the rule.

Also in the news

• China's museums were the world's most visited in 2025, according to the Themed Entertainment Association, while American federal museums saw attendance fall.
• Yoshitomo Nara discussed the effects of glaucoma on his work ahead of shows at David Zwirner's two Chelsea galleries.
• The lost Georgia O'Keeffe landscape Near Abiquiu, New Mexico I has resurfaced and heads to Christie's on November 17.
• The Amersfoort Museum in the Netherlands canceled an exhibition marking 300 years of Jewish life around the city's historic synagogue, citing "tensions following October 7, 2023" and "possible reactions," according to organizers.
• TeamLab is expanding to the US, opening in Anaheim's forthcoming OCVIBE entertainment district.
• Belmond will present photobooks at Paris Photo with Chris Rhodes, Jack Davison and Tara L. C. Sood.

Is Larry Gagosian about to be "canceled"?

Filmmaker Barry Avrich has responded to Art Plugged about his upcoming unauthorized documentary, "Shadow Man: Inside The Secret World of Larry Gagosian." In what the publication presents as "exclusive quotes" — prose dense enough with adjectives to suggest a written, possibly AI-aided or heavily edited message — Avrich says the film examines "the extraordinary power, ingenuity and ruthless drive of one person to single-handedly shape, control and manipulate the art industry to create a gallery empire, if not a monopoly."

He adds that the film is "less about the business of art and more of a provocative and somewhat Shakespearean character of the alchemy of human nature, greed and genius."

That is the substance of what Avrich offered. No release date has been made public, so whether the film delivers anything beyond its own publicity remains an open question.