Escosura, a Spanish-born, Paris-based genre painter, arrived in the United States in autumn 1876 to see the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition and to work in New York for a few months. His ambitious canvas represents a sale of objets d’art at Clinton Hall, once located at 13 Astor Place, though it is not possible to identify the specific auction. Escosura, himself a voracious collector, introduced multiple narrative threads—from the bewhiskered auctioneers in the rostrum to a fashionably-dressed clientele clutching printed catalogues to the sleeping man in the lower right corner. The artist exhibited the painting in the prestigious Paris Salon of 1877, and later presented it to The Met, a gift brokered by art dealer and long-time trustee Samuel P. Avery.
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Title:Auction Sale in Clinton Hall, New York, 1876
Artist:Ignacio de León y Escosura (Spanish, Oviedo 1834–1901 Toledo)
Date:1876
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:22 3/8 x 31 5/8 in. (56.8 x 80.3 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of the artist, 1883
Object Number:83.11
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower left): Leon / y / Escosura 1876
Ignacio de León y Escosura, ?Toledo (1876–83)
Paris. Salon. May 1–?, 1877, no. 1327 ("as "La vente aux enchères, à Clinton-Hall [New York]").
Museum of the City of New York. "The Artist in New York," April 17–September 1, 1958, unnum. checklist (as "Auction Sale in Clinton Hall, Astor Place").
Albuquerque Museum. "Prelude to Spanish Modernism: Fortuny to Picasso," August 21–November 27, 2005, no. 15.
Dallas. Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University. "Prelude to Spanish Modernism: Fortuny to Picasso," December 11, 2005–February 26, 2006, no. 15.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "New York Art Worlds, 1870–1890," December 12, 2022–July 21, 2024, no catalogue.
George A. Lucas. Journal entry. July 6, 1883 [published in Lilian M. C. Randall, "The Diary of George A. Lucas: An American Art Agent in Paris, 1857–1909," Princeton, N.J., 1979, p. 567], mentions that León y Escosura was to send two paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art [probably including this one].
Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, p. 298, calls it "An Auction Sale" and identifies the scene as an auction at Clinton Hall, New York, in 1876.
"Auction Scene from the 'Seventies." American Collector 16 (August 1947), frontispiece, ill., calls it "Auction Scene from the 'Seventies" and notes that León y Escosura painted it during his American sojourn.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 59.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 167, ill., as "Auction Sale in Clinton Hall, New York, 1876".
Gerardo Díaz Quirós inArtistas asturianos. Ed. Nicolás Salvador Egido. Vol. 1, Pintores. Oviedo, 2002, p. 183.
Mark Roglán et al. Prelude to Spanish Modernism: Fortuny to Picasso. Exh. cat., Albuquerque Museum. Albuquerque, 2005, pp. 12, 132, colorpl. 15, observes that the auction house is an extremely rare subject in Spanish painting; notes that if León y Escosura did travel to the United States in 1876 as indicated by the date of this picture, he was one of the first Spanish artists to paint in New York.
Clinton Hall stood at 13 Astor Place, above what is now the Astor Place subway station. The building originally housed the Astor Place Opera House, made infamous in the riot of 1849. From 1855 to 1932 Clinton Hall was the home of the Mercantile Library of New York, but in 1890 it was torn down and replaced by an eleven-story building, which was converted to condominiums in 1995.
Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) (Spanish, Fuendetodos 1746–1828 Bordeaux)
1804
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