John Koch Devine Light

a portrait of mrs christopher devine painted in 1973 by john koch. mrs devine is seated in an elaborately decorated living room, and only her left arm, neck, and coiffed head stick above the turquoise upholstered back of the gilt canapé, an 18th century french sofa which the devines were known to collect. a mahogany card table in the foreground has a bowl of short flowers, a little rack of eight books with their spines not visible, and a crystal candlestick holder whose sole purpose is to give koch a chance to paint light reflecting off the dangly bits. a similar chandelier is barely and gratuitously poking into the upper left corner of the painting. in the background are a black grand piano with an 18th century george romney portrait of someone else's kids and ancestors hanging above it. through an overly reflective arched doorway, the background recedes to another couple of rooms, with a statue of a woman with hands in prayer, silhouetted against a white curtained window. the woodwork on the distant floor and the closeup table all glow very showily. this painting is being sold for the third time, after the first two attempts failed, and it was donated to a convent upstate.

Does a John Koch painting need a touch of awkwardly sublimated homoeroticism to sell these days? Is retardataire virtuoso brushwork depictions of light dancing off of period furniture and crystal chandeliers in capacious pre-war interiors really not enough anymore?

Koch painted this portrait of Mrs Christopher (Bonaventura) Devine seated in the living room of her 20-room River House triplex in 1973, four years before his death, and twelve years before hers. After two attempts to sell it at seemingly reasonable Koch estimates, one of her grandchildren followed in her philanthropic footsteps and donated the painting to a convent.

a detail from a john koch portrait of bonaventura devine in which he has painted a portrait of two beige children, a small boy in a red suit, and a slightly taller gerl in a whilte dress, holding a little bundle of a doll wrapped in a blue blankie, and a black and white dog on its hind legs against her, as they all stand in a forest landscape. it is a portrait of the vernon children, from 1777, by george romney, and koch renders the light reflecting off it carved and gilded frame with a bit more care than he does the romney painting itself. in this cropped detail it can be discerned that it is hanging on a wall above a black grand piano on which sits a crystal candelabrum, and a white famille rose porcelain bowl in a glittering stand. the candleabrum, bowl, and the frame all cast shadows on the cream colored wall.
John Koch, The Vernon Children (After George Romney), a bonus with purchase of this larger painting, though because it’s Koch, he was obviously more interested in painting the light hitting the gilt frame…

And so now the nuns are selling it for whatever they can get, and the estimate is barely a tenth of where it started two years ago. It’s never not slightly weird, I think, to buy a portrait of someone you’re not related to. But the Devines did it; I do not think they had any family connection to the Vernon Children when they bought that 1777 George Romney portrait of them at Parke-Bernet in 1944. So maybe it’s just takes a little time.

Of course, now, after ten seconds of Googling, I learn that the Daughters of Mary are a traditionalist Catholic order who sold a Bouguereau in 2006, and then sued when they found out their appraiser was part of a consortium that flipped it a few months later for 5x the price. They lost. How this information informs your bidding strategy is between you and God.

16 Mar 2025, John Koch, Portrait of Mrs. Christopher Devine, est. $3-5,000 [kaminski’s via liveauctioneers]
Previously, related: John Koch, Portrait of Benjamin Chester (Version 1)
Everything’s Funnier When You Add ‘In Bed’ At The End