# The Lot That Did Not Sell > Six objects in this archive were offered at auction and not sold. An unsold lot is a price nobody paid and a date the object went quiet, and in one case the museum that now owns it has left the sale out of its own provenance. > The Study - 2026-09-15 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/the-lot-that-did-not-sell/ ## Key points - Six records in this archive carry an auction at which the object was offered and not sold: two Vermeers in 1804 and 1820, a Turner in 1864, the Portland Vase between 1929 and 1932, the Crown of the Andes in 1995 and a Bernini bust in 2013. In four of the six the unsold lot was followed by a silence of between eleven and a hundred and sixty years. - The Louvre's own provenance for The Astronomer writes the 1820 Gibbons sale as non vendu ou rachete, unsold or bought back, and gives as its evidence that Gibbons was still able to lend the picture to an exhibition in 1828. - Turner's Rising Squall was lot 152 at Christie's on 9 July 1864 and did not sell. It next appeared in public in April 2024, at Dreweatts, as a follower of Ibbetson, for 524.80 pounds with fees. - The Metropolitan Museum's published provenance for the Crown of the Andes runs from Alice Heyman, 1973 to 2015, straight to the Museum. The failed Christie's sale of 1995, with a reserve reported at about 3,000,000 dollars, is not in it. - The bust of Paul V failed to sell in Bratislava in 2013 against an estimate of 47,000 euros, sold the next year at 24,000, and was reported in 2015 as bought by the Getty for 33,000,000 dollars. The unsold lot was the cheapest moment in the object's recorded life. ## An unsold lot is a price nobody paid and a date the object went quiet ## Six objects here were offered and not sold ## The Louvre writes the 1820 sale as unsold or bought back, and gives its evidence ## Lot 152 in 1864, and then nothing for a hundred and sixty years ## The only time the market was asked to price the Portland Vase, the number was not kept ## The failed sale that is missing from the museum's own provenance ## Unsold at 47,000 euros, sold at 24,000, then thirty-three million dollars ## What a bought-in lot does to the next price ## How to record a lot that did not sell ## Why this archive is free to read An unsold lot is the auction record that never produces a price and is most often quoted as though it had. Write it as Unsold, keep the seller's figure in the note where it belongs, fix the date and the lot and treat it as the last light before a gap. The day the market said no is a fact about the object, and it is usually the fact the next buyer most needs and is least likely to be shown. ## Questions **What does bought in mean at an auction?** It means the lot failed to reach its reserve and went back to the seller, usually recorded in the catalogue under a fictitious buyer's name or the name of the auctioneer. No sale took place and no price was paid. The Concert is recorded as bought in by Paillet, the expert who ran the 1804 sale. **Did the Portland Vase ever sell at auction?** Once, on 7 June 1786, as lot 4155 in the Portland Museum sale, for 980 guineas to a Mr Tomlinson bidding for the third Duke. When the sixth Duke offered it at Christie's between 1929 and 1932 it failed to reach its reserve, and the reserve is not published. The British Museum bought it privately in 1945. **When was Turner's Rising Squall last seen before 2024?** At Christie's in London on 9 July 1864, as lot 152 in the property of Joseph Hogarth, where it did not sell. It next appeared at Dreweatts in Newbury on 4 April 2024, catalogued as a follower of Ibbetson and sold for 524.80 pounds with fees. **Does the Metropolitan Museum's provenance for the Crown of the Andes mention the 1995 Christie's sale?** No. The Museum's published provenance runs from Alice Heyman, New York, 1973 to 2015, directly to the Museum. The 1995 consignment, at which the crown failed to sell against a reserve reported at about 3,000,000 dollars, is not recorded because ownership did not change. **Is an unsold lot evidence of what an object is worth?** Only of what the room would not pay under that catalogue description on that day. Bernini's bust of Paul V failed at 47,000 euros in 2013 as a misattributed lot, sold for 24,000 euros in 2014, and was reported bought by the Getty for 33,000,000 dollars in 2015. ## Sources - [1] Musee du Louvre, collections database, L'Astronome, RF 1983 28, historique. Read 15 September 2026. Source for the Gibbons sale of 7 October 1820, lot 31, recorded as non vendu ou rachete because the picture was lent to Birmingham in 1828, and the W. Gibbons sale of 18 June 1857, lot 52. - [2] Essential Vermeer, The Concert by Johannes Vermeer, provenance. Read 15 September 2026. Source for the Diederik van Leyden sale, Paris, Paillet, 5 November 1804, lot 62, to Paillet, and the Foster's sale of 26 February 1835, lot 127. - [3] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection record for the Crown of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, known as the Crown of the Andes, 2015.437, provenance section. Read in a browser 15 September 2026. Source for the published provenance from Alice Heyman, 1973-2015, to the Museum, with no entry for 1995 and for the dating of about 1660 and about 1770. - [4] Sotheby's, Old Master and 19th Century Paintings Evening Auction, London, 2 July 2025, lot 28, J. M. W. Turner, The Rising Squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent's Rock, Bristol, provenance, as cited in our Turner record for the Christie's sale of 9 July 1864, lot 152, unsold. - [5] Milo Keynes, The Portland Vase: Sir William Hamilton, Josiah Wedgwood and the Darwins, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 1998, as cited in our Portland Vase record for the 1786 sale, the 1929-32 Christie's offering and the 1945 purchase. - [6] Wikipedia, Crown of the Andes, tertiary, consolidating press coverage of Christopher Hartop's 1995 examination during the Christie's consignment and the reported reserve; cited by our record pending the contemporary press reports.