Pre-Raphaelite Masterpiece Expected to Rake in $1.3 Million at Auction
By Vittoria Benzine
Last November, a smattering of radiant Tiffany lamps from the collection of accomplished literary agent Albert Zuckerman anchored a Christie’s auction. This summer, the auction house will round out its sale of the late Zuckerman’s collection by offering 20 Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist oil paintings, watercolors, and pastels that he once owned over two sales in London.
One work leads this trove by leaps and bounds in terms of estimates: Thy Music, faintly falling, dies away, Thy dear eyes dream that Love will live for aye (1893) by Pre-Raphaelite painter John Melhuish Strudwick is expected to rake in £700,000 to £1 million ($950,000–$1.3 million) amid its Old Masters Evening Sale on June 30.
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The work represents Strudwick’s second-highest auction record, according to the Artnet Price Database—ever since Zuckerman bought it from Christie’s London in November 2003 for £509,250 ($863,130). The first place record currently belongs to Strudwick’s oil and gold scene Summer Songs (1901), which sold at Sotheby’s London two years later for £848,000 ($1.4 million).
Even absent facts and figures, Thy Music stirs. The work resolutely hones in on its idealized, ethereal yet strong-willed subject, affording Strudwick ample room to portray the fabric on her garments with sumptuous precision. This attention to detail became a hallmark of the artist’s practice, and purportedly a reason he created so few paintings (art historian Steven Kolsteren calculates that Strudwick made just 39). “Painted at the height of Strudwick’s career,” Christie’s press materials said, the work “marks the culmination of everything the artist stood for and exemplifies the ‘cult of beauty’ created by the Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements.”
Studio of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, attributed to Henry Treffry Dunn, Lady Lilith (undated) Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd. 2026.
Strudwick notably hailed from the second generation of Pre-Raphaelite artists, which followed the more famous Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of 1848 through 1853. Its subsequent generation was active between the 1860s and 1880s. “Although perhaps not as well-known today outside of Pre-Raphaelite circles as some of his contemporaries,” Christie’s said, “Strudwick was one of the leading exponents of the movement.”
British artists William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones haven proven the second generation’s lasting figureheads. Both artists took cues from Pre-Raphaelite star Dante Gabriel Rossetti, with whom they’d worked. Strudwick, meanwhile, grew significantly during his stint assisting Burne-Jones in his studio during the 1870s.
The first savvy collector to snap up Thy Music was Liverpool shipping magnate William Imrie, an original business partner behind the same White Star Line that went on to launch the Titanic in 1901. Imrie bought the piece directly from Strudwick, according to Christie’s provenance record for the work, then consigned it to the auction house in 1907. Thy Music has changed hands about half a dozen times since, and hit the auction block three times along the way.
John Anster Fitzgerald, The Fairy Bower (1906) Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd. 2026.
The day after Thy Music goes under the hammer, 19 further works from Zuckerman’s collection will take their turn, as part of the Christie’s Old Masters to Modern Day Sale. Treasures here will include two ethereal scenes by famed fairy painter John Anster Fitzgerald, and three sets of charming graphic tiles depicting ducklings, snakes, a monkey, and more by William Bell Scott—deep cuts from the Scottish artist.
One of English painter Albert Joseph Moore’s archetypal lounging ladies, Pansies (c. 1875), will lead this section of the sale, with an estimate of £150,000 to 250,000 ($210,000–$340,000). Three artworks are not far behind: Les Deux vignes (The two vines) (1920) by producer of hot lots past Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer; the seductive Sirène (1902) by his fellow French Symbolist Edgard Maxence; and a pencil and chalk on paper version of Rossetti’s painting Lady Lilith (1866–1868 and 1872–73) attributed to his assistant Henry Treffry Dunn. All three works are expected to sell for £100,000 to 150,000 ($140,000–$200,000).
This article was originally published by Artnet News.