Auction introduction: The Sotheby’s Old Masters department is delighted to present our December Evening Sale, which will include property from the collection of Juan Manuel Grasset, led by an exceptional view of the Grand Canal, Venice, by Canaletto, dating to the 1730s, its history traceable directly from its commission by the 1st Duke of Kent until today. The collection is further formed of some of the finest still lifes and landscapes from the Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish Art, including a superlative example of the great Jan Davidsz. de Heem working on an exquisitely small scale, the most complex and impressive composition by one of the early pioneers of still life painting, Osias Beert, a genre-defining banquet still life by Floris van Dyck, and a typically luxurious and exotic arrangement by Balthasar van der Ast. Alongside such works as these are a highly-finished and detailed river landscape on copper, by Jan Brueghel the Elder, and an elegant winter scene by Barent Avercamp.