The World's Largest Modern & Contemporary Prints & Editions Platform
According To Prescriptions Of Ancient Magicians - Signed Print by David Hockney 1966 - MyArtBroker

According To Prescriptions Of Ancient Magicians
Signed Print

David Hockney

£2,250-£3,350Value Indicator

$4,450-$6,500 Value Indicator

$4,050-$6,000 Value Indicator

¥21,000-¥30,000 Value Indicator

2,700-4,050 Value Indicator

$22,000-$35,000 Value Indicator

¥430,000-¥630,000 Value Indicator

$2,850-$4,250 Value Indicator

5% AAGR

AAGR (5 years) This estimate blends recent public auction records with our own private sale data and network demand.

There aren't enough data points on this work for a comprehensive result. Please speak to a specialist by making an enquiry.

Medium: Etching

Year: 1966

Size: H 35cm x W 22cm

Signed: Yes

Format: Signed Print

TradingFloor

1 in network
8 want this
Find out how Buying or Selling works.
Track this artwork in realtime

Watch artwork, manage valuations, track your portfolio and return against your collection

Track auction value trend

The value of David Hockney’s According To Prescriptions Of Ancient Magicians (signed) is estimated to be worth between £2,250 and £3,350. Over the past five years, the hammer price ranges from £2,000 in September 2023 to £3,200 in June 2023. This artwork has shown consistent value growth, with an average annual growth rate of 6%. This is a rare work, having been sold 8 times at auction since its initial sale in November 2003. The edition size of this artwork is not available.

Unlock up-to-the-minute market data on David Hockney's According To Prescriptions Of Ancient Magicians, login or create a free account today

Auction Results

Auction DateAuction HouseLocation
Hammer Price
Return to Seller
Buyer Paid
November 2023Stockholms Auction House Sweden
September 2023Bonhams Knightsbridge United Kingdom
June 2023Bonhams New Bond Street United Kingdom
September 2019Quittenbaum Germany
May 2019Wright United States
December 2004Lempertz, Cologne Germany
March 2004Lempertz, Cologne Germany

Meaning & Analysis

In According To The Formulas Of Ancient Greco-Syrian Magicians (1931), one of Cavafy’s last poems that inspired the etching, a man longs to be reunited with the lover of his youth, wishing for a potion to move him back in time and “bring back the age of twenty-three again; bring my friend at twenty-two years old back [to me] again – his beauty, his love.’’ The drawing of two men in bed presented in the print was copied onto the etching plate from Boys In Bed, Beirut, an ink drawing of Hockney’s friends made in London.

The etching captures the evolution of Hockney’s approach to the themes of eroticism and same-sex desire. Having debuted as an artist before homosexual acts between men were legalized in England and Wales in 1967, Hockney started with a subtle and rather indirect way of representing gay love. We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961), an early painting inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem of the same title, engages with intimacy and eroticism through subtle symbols and highly abstracted representation. Preceding the artist’s bold nude portraits of his lovers including Gregory Evans, the Cavafy illustrations represent the gradual evolution of Hockney’s idiom.

More from Illustrations For Fourteen Poems By C.P. Cavafy