Auction house Artmark announced a major auction for this winter featuring an engraving created by Francisco Goya, the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Romania’s late communist leader\u00a0Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu received this gift from King Juan Carlos I as a gesture of diplomacy.<\/p>\n
The engraving entitled \u201cThe Engagement \u2013 Capricho no. 57,\u201d is part of the \u201cLos Caprichos\u201d (\u201cThe Caprices\u201d) series. It was a personal gift received by communist dictator Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu from the King of Spain, Juan Carlos I of Bourbon, around the years 1979\u201380.<\/p>\n
Following the 1989 revolution, the engraving was transferred to the administration of the National Museum of Art of Romania. It was returned to the heiress, Zoia Ceau\u0219escu, in 2012.<\/p>\n
Another Eastern European leader, Josip Broz Tito, the former president of Yugoslavia, also received copies of the \u201cCaprices\u201d series from Enrique Galvan, president of the Spanish Socialist Party. The artworks are now held at the Museum of Yugoslavia in Belgrade.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The engraving auctioned by Artmark has a starting price of EUR 8,000. According to the auction house, \u201csimilar Goya works have been sold for tens of thousands of euros.\u201d The auction<\/a> is set to take place on Tuesday, December 16.<\/p>\n In the same Artmark auction, collectors also have access to works of Romanian art, such as a classic nude signed by Nicolae Grigorescu titled \u201cAt the Spring\u201d and painted around the 1860s, with a starting price of EUR 50,000, as well as a painting signed by Nicolae Vermont, \u201cYoung Enescu in Recital\u201d (1927), with a starting price of EUR 5,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n In total, Artmark\u2019s winter auction features 195 pieces by Nicolae Tonitza, Theodor Aman, Camil Ressu, \u0218tefan Luchian, Octav B\u0103ncil\u0103, Samuel M\u00fctzner, Theodor Pallady, Ion \u021auculescu, Corneliu Baba, Constantin Piliu\u021b\u0103, \u0218tefan C\u00e2l\u021bia, Felix Aftene, and Adrian Ghenie.<\/p>\n