A four-page draft overture for Ludwig van Beethoven’s The Consecration of the House (1822) is scheduled for auction at Sotheby’s, with an estimate of £200,000. The pencil-and-ink manuscript was written rapidly in September 1822 while Beethoven recuperated in Baden. It was commissioned to open the newly renovated Josefstadt Theater in Vienna, marking Beethoven’s final appearance as a conductor. The overture’s ceremonial grandeur centers on a fugue and reflects Handel’s influence, whom Beethoven admired. Sotheby’s describes it as the most extensive Beethoven manuscript to appear at auction in two decades. The sale forms part of a two-part online auction of the collections of Christopher Cone and Stanley J. Seeger, totaling about 280 lots and estimated at £1.2 million.
"Sketched out in pencil and ink, the four-page draft was written at a rapid clip in September 1822 while Beethoven was recuperating in the spa town of Baden. As the title suggests, it was commissioned to open the newly renovated Josefstadt Theater in Vienna, a premiere that marked the composer's final appearance on the podium. The work's ceremonial grandeur, with a fugue at its core, nods to Handel, whom Beethoven venerated."
"Sotheby's calls it the most extensive Beethoven manuscript to hit the block in two decades. The Beethoven overture arrives at the auction house in the second half of a two-part online sale dedicated to the eccentric and encyclopedic collectors Christopher Cone and Stanley J. Seeger, who died in 2011. The first sale, which runs from May 28 to June 9, presents the pair's hats, canes, and jewels, including Fabergé trinkets."
"The heir to an American fortune built on lumber, oil, and railways, Seeger was a reclusive figure who moved to England after meeting Cone in the late 1970s. Together, they bought a Tudor manor in Surrey that had belonged to J Paul Getty for £8 million (roughly $70 million today), then a U.K. record, and filled it with whatever piqued their fancy at auction houses and antique shops."
Read at Artnet News
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