Nigel Ip

HIGHLIGHTS | Frieze Masters 2023 – Regent’s Park

Oct 14, 2023

1–2 minutes

Frieze Masters this year was a bit more nuanced. Less flashy and you really had to go digging to find the good stuff.

My top 10 may or may not surprise you:

Lucio Fontana, Madonna and Child, 1954-55, glazed and painted ceramic (Robilant + Voena, stand D2)

Bartolomeo di Giovanni, The Trinity with Saints Jerome, Louis of Toulouse, Benedict, John the Baptist, Catherine of Siena, and Francis, c.1480-1500 (Sam Fogg, stand C1)

Rembrandt and Gerrit Dou, Blind Tobit with the return of Tobias and the archangel Raphael, c.1628-29 (Koetser Gallery, stand E6)

Priced at £24m, this re-attributed early Rembrandt (with Dou’s assistance) may have been a response to his father’s eventual blindness, who died soon after in 1630.

Edgar Degas, The Laundress, etching and aquatint, cancellation proof (Emanuel von Baeyer, stand C17)

I’m obsessed with cancellation proofs – often unique impressions from a cancelled plate to mark the end of the edition – and they don’t come on the market very often, if ever. If money was no object, I would buy this immediately.

Stand of Shibunkaku (A10)

Gino Parin, The Poetess Fanny Tedeschi in Purple and Black, c.1926 (Lullo Pampoulides, stand B3)

Pietro Calvi, Othello, c.1870, white marble and bronze with dark brown patina (Bowman Sculpture, stand C20)

A striking depiction of Ira Aldridge, one of the first Black American tragic actors and the first to portray Othello.

The Hours of Isabella d’Este, use of Rome. Manuscript in Latin, illuminated by Gherardo and Monte di Giovanni del Fora. Italy, Florence, c.1490 (Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books, stand E3)

Coming from the renowned Alana Collection (who acquired it from the Cartier family), it is incredibly rare to find a traceable object belonging to Isabella d’Este, that queen of Renaissance female patrons. This was an instant highlight for me.