On January 28, 2021, Sandro Botticelli's Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel sold at Sotheby's New York for $92.2 million including fees, with an $80 million hammer price. The painting came from the estate of Sheldon Solow, who had acquired it in 1982 after it passed through the Merton family. The result was a record for Botticelli, roughly nine times the artist's previous auction high, and The Art Newspaper reported it as the highest price for any Old Master painting sold at Sotheby's and the second-highest Old Master auction price then recorded. The sale was important beyond the price because fully attributed Botticelli portraits remain extremely rare in private hands, making the auction a major test of both Old Master demand and pandemic-era high-end bidding.
The sale reset Botticelli's market and signaled continuing demand for rare museum-quality Old Masters.