Old Masters at Sotheby’s New York: our top lots

When it comes to my favourite Old Masters sales, most people know that I like them offbeat, and Sothebys sale on 25 January features several beautiful and compelling pictures of that sort by mostly unfamiliar masters. Here are two of them.
The first is a remarkable canvas by the late 16th-century Florentine artist Domenico Cresti (also known as Passignano), Bathers at San Niccolo (1638; est $700,000-$900,000), depicting a gathering of lithe, muscular nude men frolicking in the river Arno during