newsfromchristies201102

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Nature morte à "L'Espérance", painted in Tahiti in 1901

Signed and dated Paul Gauguin 1901 (lower right)
Oil on canvas (66,2x76,2cm)
Estimate £7,000,000-£10,000,000 (US$11,291,000-US$16,130,000) (Lot 17)

«Nature morte à 'L'Espérance' is an historic picture painted in 1901, towards the end of Paul Gauguin's legendary stay in Tahiti. This picture has passed through the hands of a very prestigious array of prominent collectors including Gustave Fayet, one of the people who helped to found Gauguin's reputation and whose collection, including this picture, was shown at a retrospective dedicated to the artist at the 1906 Salon d'Automne, an exhibition that was to have a marked influence on many of the great pioneers of modern art including Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Nature morte à 'L'Espérance' is one of four showing sunflowers which he painted that year, doubtless in part as a tribute to his friend and fellow artistic pioneer Vincent van Gogh, who had died just over a decade earlier. One of the other sunflower still life compositions, Fleurs de tournesol dans un fauteuil, is now in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, and another similar composition is in the Fondation E.G. Bürhle, Zurich; a fourth in a private collection is the only vertical example of the group, and thus appears to be a more overt reference to Van Gogh. Nature morte à 'L'Espérance', which Françoise Cachin has described as perhaps the best of the group in her monograph (F. Cachin, Gauguin, trans. B. Ballard, Paris, 1990, p. 239), differs from the others in the inclusion of two artworks in the background, a reproduction of Puvis de Chavannes' L'Espérance from around 1872 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) and Edgar Degas' print Le petit cabinet de toilette of 1879-80. Puvis de Chevannes' L'Espérance is a study for his major composition Allégorie de L'Espérance (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore) [...]

Provenance:
_ Property from a private european collection.
_ Acquired from the estate of the below by the present owner in 1996.
_ Joanne T. Cummings, Chicago, by descent from the below in 1985.
_ Nathan Cummings, Chicago, by whom acquired in 1956.
_ Robert Rutherford McCormick, Chicago, by 1930, and thence by descent to Mrs. Robert Rutherford McCormick.
_ Chester H. Johnson, Chicago.
_ Paul Rosenberg, Paris.
_ Gustave Fayet, Igny.

André Derain (1880-1954)
Bateaux à Collioure, painted in 1905
Signed a derain (lower left)
Oil on canvas (38,4x46cm)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium £5,865,250 US$9,419,592 €6,903,399 (Christie's London, February 9th 2011, Lot 16)
Estimate £4,000,000-£6,000,000 (US$6,452,000-US$9,678,000)
Lot sold to Anonymous

«Bateaux à Collioure is one of the pictures that André Derain painted during his historic stay in the French coastal town of the same name, where he had gone to join his fellow artist and friend, the older Henri Matisse. There, the two worked alongside each other, blazing the trail of the movement that would, in the Salon d'Automne that was held sometime after their return to Paris later that year, be dubbed the 'Fauves.' The wildness that lent the loosely-joined movement its name is clear in the bold, brightly blazing colours of Bateaux à Collioure, with the broad areas of red and yellow making up the foreground, the lapis flecks that convey some of the shimmering water and the boats, and the green of the sky. This painting perfectly embodies Derain's statement that, 'Fauvism was for us a trial by fire... The colours became sticks of dynamite. They had to explode into light' (Derain, quoted in N. Kalitina, André Derain, Leningrad, 1976, p. 9) [...]

Provenance:
_ Property from a private swiss collection.
_ Acquired by the present owner circa 1960.
_ Anonymous Sale, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 17 June 1960.
_ Ambroise Vollard, Paris.

Georges Braque (1882-1963)
Nature morte à la guitare (rideaux rouge), painted in 1938
Signed and dated G. Braque 38 (lower left)
Oil and sand on canvas (81x100cm)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium £3,961,250 US$6,361,768 €4,662,391 (Christie's London, February 9th 2011, Lot 5)
Estimate £3,500,000-£5,500,000 (US$5,645,500-US$8,871,500)
Lot sold to Anonymous

«Painted in 1938, Nature morte à la guitare (rideaux rouge) dates from a crucial period when Georges Braque began to create elaborate still life and interior compositions that were filled with a new vitality, in part due to the more ambitious scale of the motifs depicted. In the case of Nature morte à la guitare (rideaux rouge), this is evident in the fact that the table - the guéridon, that icon of late Cubism - is viewed from a distance that incorporates the various elements, be it the fruit, the crockery, the musical instrument or indeed the curtains themselves within the view. Rather than showing a clutch of objects in close-up, this gives a richer sense of the fabric of the interior in Braque's own world, plunging the viewer into his universe [...]

Provenance:
_ Sold by the Art Institute of Chicago.
_ A gift from the below to The Art Institute of Chicago in 1959.
_ Mr and Mrs Albert D. Lasker, New York, by whom acquired from the below in January 1947.
_ Paul Rosenberg & Co., London and New York, by whom acquired directly from the artist in 1938.

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Danseuses jupes jaunes (Deux danseuses en jaune), executed circa 1896
Signed Degas (lower right)
Pastel and charcoal on joined paper (60,2x42,4cm)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium £5,417,250 US$8,700,104 €6,376,103 (Christie's London, February 9th 2011, Lot 9)
Estimate £3,000,000-£5,000,000 (US$4,839,000-US$8,065,000)
Lot sold to Anonymous

«Danseuses jupes jaunes (Deux danseuses en jaune) is a highly-finished pastel dating from circa 1896 which shows Edgar Degas' most favoured theme, the ballet, captured in the explosive palette that marked his works from this period. Here, two dancers are shown resting against the painted theatre backdrop, one adjusting the straps and facing us, the other facing away with her hands on her back, as though stretching. This is an informal glimpse of life behind the curtain, of a world of incredible athleticism, movement and action in a rare moment of repose and respite, yet that atmosphere of informality is belied by the incredible finish of the surface, which Degas has eked out not in a mere instant, capturing an intimate moment, but instead with an incredible build-up of often hatched strokes of pastel, creating his distinctive palimpsest-like accumulation of colour. This is especially visible in the areas of shadow, for instance at the dancers' feet [...]

Provenance:
_ Property of a private european collector.
_ Bruno and Paul Cassirer, Berlin (no. 173), by whom acquired from the below galeries on 27 April 1899, and thence by descent to the present owner.
_ Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris (no. 3942), by whom acquired directly from the artist on 15 October 1896.

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947)
Terrasse à Vernon, painted in 1923
Signed and dated BOnnard 23 (lower right)
Oil on canvas (120x105cm)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium £7,209,250 US$11,578,056 €8,485,287 (Christie's London, February 9th 2011, Lot 10)
Estimate £3,000,000-£4,000,000 (US$4,839,000-US$6,452,000)
Lot sold to Anonymous

***WORLD RECORD FOR THE ARTIST AT AUCTION***

«Painted in 1923, Terrasse à Vernon is a colourist masterclass, showing the view from Ma Roulotte, the Norman home of Pierre Bonnard. This picture, which was one of only three that Bonnard selected to be exhibited at the Salon d'Automne that year, and which was very well-received, is saturated with luscious greens, lapis and turquoise, while the ground has a sunny feel that is enhanced by the glimmer of light of the young woman watching the artist - or the viewer. The composition itself deliberately avoids classical perspective or a sense of over-central emphasis, to drag the viewer's attention, ensuring that our eye grazes across the entirety of the canvas, taking in the landscape as a whole while also enjoying such details as the blue and white stripes of the table-cloth, the red petals of the flowers or the landscape that stretches out in the background, or rather which reaches up the height of the canvas to the horizon, two thirds of the way to its top. This is a device that Bonnard used in many of his most accomplished landscapes, satisfying his innate passion for monumental canvases filled with colour - the legacy of his Nabi past [...]

Provenance:
_ Property of a private french collector.
_ M. Léon Delaroche, by whom acquired from the below galerie, by 1935, and thence by descent to the present owner.
_ Galerie d'Art Moderne, Lausanne.
_ Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, by whom acquired directly from the artist in 1923.

newsfromsothebys201102

Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale maintained confidence. Sotheby's "will be led by a major painting by Pablo Picasso, depicting Marie-Thérèse Walter, the woman who transformed both his life and his art. Picasso’s La Lecture of 1932 (estimated at £12,000,000-18,000,000 / US$18,570,000 - $27,850,000*) relates closely to the legendary painting Le Rêve (The Dream), painted in the same year, and ranks among the stars of the big season of sales that will take place in London from February 8th to 17th."

Furthermore, "2010 was an exceptional year for sculpture, with record-breaking prices seen across the board. Chief among these was Giacometti’s £65 million L’Homme qui marche I, sold at Sotheby’s in February last year and establishing a record for any work of art sold at auction. Given the strength of the sculpture market, this February’s sale includes a fittingly strong selection of sculpture, with works by Marini, Giacometti, Moore and Maillol."

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
La Lecture, painted in January 1932

Signed Picasso (upper right), inscribed 11 decembre M.CM.XXXII. on the reverse
Oil on panel (65.5x51cm)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium £25,241,250 US$40,711,612 €29,744,296 (Sotheby's London, February 8th 2011, Lot 8)
Estimate £12,000,000-18,000,000
Lot sold to Anonymous

«Picasso's iconic paintings of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter reign supreme as the emblems of love, sex and desire in twentieth-century art. The sensual La Lecture, which is one of the most recognisable images among this landmark series from the beginning of 1932, essentially introduced the young woman as an extraordinary new presence in Picasso's life and his art. This exceptional work is one in a series of defining paintings in the artist's oeuvre in which he depicts his lover asleep in an armchair, the curves of her body transformed into a sumptuous confection with colourful swirls and sweeping arabesques. Marie-Thérèse's potent mix of physical attractiveness and sexual naivety had an intoxicating effect on Picasso, and his rapturous desire for the girl brought about a wealth of images that have been acclaimed as the most erotic and emotionally uplifting compositions of his long career. Picasso's unleashed passion is nowhere more apparent than in the depictions of the sleeping beauty, the embodiment of tranquility and physical acquiescence. Similar to Le Rêve (fig. 1), painted only days apart, La Lecture is rich with signifiers of sexual availability, fertility and pleasure and exemplifies Picasso's creative power in full bloom [...]


Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966)
Diego, painted in 1958

Signed Alberto Giacometti and dated 1958 (lower right)
Oil on canvas (81x65cm)
Estimate £3,000,000-5,000,000 (Lot 11)

«Diego is a dramatic and haunting portrait of Giacometti's younger brother, influenced by the post-war Existentialist movement and Giacometti's own reworking of themes from his Surrealist past. Like an apparition in the foggy space of the composition, the bust of a man emerges through a haze of grey paint. The juxtaposition of the slender head and the broad, voluminous bust is reminiscent of Giacometti's bronzes executed around this time. The picture captures a particular sentiment that the artist once expressed in a Surrealist prose poem: 'The human face is as strange to me as a countenance, which, the more one looks at it, the more it closes itself off and escapes by the steps of unknown stairways' (quoted in Alberto Giacometti (exhibition catalogue), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. &San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, 1988-89, p. 37) [...]

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966)
Grand buste de Diego avec bras, executed in 1957 and cast in bronze in an edition of 6. The present work was cast in 1958.

Inscribed Alberto Giacometti, dated 1957, numbered 5/6 and with the foundry mark Susse Fr, Paris
Bronze, gold platina (height 57,5cm)
Estimate £3,500,000-5,000,000 (Lot 31)

«Grand buste de Diego avec bras belongs to a celebrated series of Alberto Giacometti's sculptural portraits of his younger brother Diego, who was the primary model for the artist's numerous variations on the theme of head and bust sculptures throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Throughout their professional lives, the Giacometti brothers (fig. 1) had an intensely close relationship. Diego devoted the major part of his own artistic career to assisting Alberto with his sculpture and supervising the casting of his bronzes. By the early fifties, Alberto had gained considerable critical recognition in Paris and had amassed a broad clientele, while Diego had just begun to design the bronze furniture which would eventually make him famous in his own right. Well aware of his younger brother's talent, Alberto encouraged Diego to pursue his own career. Nevertheless, Alberto relied heavily upon his brother's expertise and recognised him as indispensable in the production of the numerous innovative sculptures that had secured Alberto a contract with the Galerie Maeght in 1950. Speaking of this relationship, Annette Arm observed of her husband Alberto in June 1952: 'He remains always his same anxious self, but fortunately, he has a brother who is more calm and understands him well' (quoted in James Lord, Giacometti, A Biography, New York, 1983, p. 329) [...]

Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Argenteuil, fin d'après-midi, painted in 1872.

Signed Claude Monet (lower right)
Oil on canvas (60x81cm)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium £3,401,250 US$5,124,587 €3,744,072 (Sotheby's London, February 8th 2011, Lot 15)
Estimate £3,500,000-4,500,000
Lot sold to Anonymous

«Argenteuil, fin d'après-midi, painted at the dawning of the Impressionist movement in the early 1870s, is one of Monet's first major landscapes of his new home, just outside of Paris. Argenteuil was famous for its annual regatta, and Monet took full advantage of the town's nautical resources to depict scenes of sailboats on the Seine. As Paul Hayes Tucker explains, '[By] 1871, when Monet moved there, his new home was not just some secluded little town outside of Paris but a celebrated center for pleasure boating in France. Boating meant Argenteuil and Argenteuil meant boating; the two were inseparable. The importance of this fact cannot be overemphasized, considering how much of Monet's work is devoted to sailboats on the Seine. He could have painted the barges or the fishing boats as Daubigny had when he came to neighbouring Bezons – for these vessels could still be seen coming and going on the river in Argenteuil in the 1870s –but they were old-fashioned. Rather, Monet chose to depict only those craft that represented the leisure activity of the day, and one of the most up-to-date aspects of the life of the town' (P. H. Tucker, Monet at Argenteuil, New Haven, 1982, pp. 90-91) [...]

Marino Marini (1901-1980)
L'idea del cavaliere, executed in 1955 and cast in bronze in an edition of 4. This work was also carved in wood in 1956.

inscribed MM, numbered 3/3 and stamped with the foundry mark Fonderia d'Arte De Andreis, Milano
Bronze, painted by the artist (height 220cm)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium £4,185,250 US$5,485,876 €4,008,034 (Sotheby's London, February 8th 2011, Lot 20)
Estimate £3,700,000-4,500,000
Lot sold to Anonymous

«Equestrian images have a long and esteemed tradition in Western art. Throughout the centuries, paintings and sculptures of men on horseback, often depicting noble cavalrymen or generals mounted on their steed, celebrated the glories and victories of an era or an empire. But the sculptures of riders and horses that Marino Marini created after the Second World War are a radical departure from this tradition. Conceived in the midst of profound political transformation, Marini's riders are a response to the wave of uncertainty that engulfed civilisation during the Cold War. Marini was obsessed with making the horse and rider theme applicable to the contemporary age, and no other artist in the history of 20th century art came close to revitalising this age-old subject with such creativity and expressive force. His anonymous, highly abstracted horsemen eschew any pomp or pretence and are rich with psychological complexity and formal beauty. This monumental sculpture from 1955 of a rider and his horse, rigid with explosive tension, is a wonderful example of the artist's achievements in this area [...]

newsfromchristies201011

Henri MATISSE (1869-1954)
Nu de dos, 4 état (Back IV), conceived circa 1930 and cast in 1978
Signed with initials 'HM' and numbered '00/10' (lower right)
Bronze with dark brown patina, 189.2cm (Height)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$48,802,500 (£30,257,550) (€34,649,775) (Christie's NY, November 2rd 2010, Lot 65)
Estimate US$25,000,000-35,000,000
Lot Sold Gagosian Gallery Inc.

***WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST***

Nu assis sur un divan (La Belle Romaine) exemplifies Modigliani's conquest of the nude, a subject that is considered his greatest accomplishment in painting. Continuing the tradition of Botticelli's Venus, Velazquez's Rokeby Venus, Ingres' Baigneuse turque and Manet's Olympia, it ranks among the definitive nudes in the history of Western art.

The four life-sized reliefs known today as Backs I-IV represent Matisse's most monumental and ambitious sculptural undertaking and the longest-lived single project of his career (figs. 1-4). This imposing set of reliefs, executed at widely spaced intervals between 1908 and 1931, has been lauded as "one of the artist's most distinctive achievements" (M. Mezzatesta, Henri Matisse, Sculptor/Painter, exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1984, p. 79) and "one of the great landmarks of modern sculpture" (S. Nash, exh. cat., 2007, p. 9). The four Backs are united by the penetrating analysis of a single motif, the female nude leaning against a wall and viewed from behind. The compositions move from a relatively naturalistic rendering of the figure in Back I through progressively simplified and increasingly geometric anatomies to the startlingly stripped down, columnar figure in Back IV--"a stark but refined, highly architectural monolith, in which Matisse smoothed away the struggles of its earlier states" (S. D'Alessandro and J. Elderfield, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 355). The present work is one of twelve bronze casts of this culminating relief, and one of only two examples that currently remain in private hands (...) Back IV with the reprise of the Danse theme that Matisse painted for Albert Barnes (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania). [...]

Property from a European Private Collector

Juan GRIS (1887-1927)
Violon et guitare, painted in Céret, September 1913
Signed, inscribed and date 'Juan Gris, Céret. 9-13' (on the reverse)
Oil on canvas, 100.3x65.4cm

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$28,642,500 (£17,758,350) (€20,336,175) (Christie's NY, November 2rd 2010, Lot 23)
Estimate US$18,000,000-25,000,000
Lot Sold. European Private

***WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST***

When Juan Gris returned to Paris in early November 1913 from his three-month sojourn in Céret, he had good reason to be pleased with the pictures he had painted there. He completed thirteen canvases in a consistently focused and formally cohesive series of still-lifes, figures and landscapes, paintings which constituted the most assured, fully fledged and distinctively personal work he had done to date. John Golding has declared, "Gris, who had always been an original painter, had during 1912 asserted himself as an important influence on the minor figures of the Cubist movement. Now, in 1913, he was executing works which match the contemporary paintings of Picasso and Braque in quality and invention... Gris' work of 1913 shows rather a steady progression toward an increasingly accomplished and commanding kind of painting" (op. cit., p. 129). Indeed, among these pictures are several that would eventually be counted among the very best he ever painted, indisputable masterworks that demonstrate an astonishing and dazzling synthesis of idea, color and form. Violon et guitare was Gris' own favorite among these Céret paintings, as he mentioned in a letter quoted below. This painting has since come to be widely regarded as a peak in his magnificent oeuvre, and one of the milestones of cubism and early modernism. [...]

Property from a Distinguished Private Collection: Four Modern Masterpieces

Joan MIRÓ (1893-1983)
L'Air, 1938
Signed 'Miró' (center left)
Oil on canvas, 54.9x46cm

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$10,330,500 (£6,404,910) (€7,334,655) (Christie's NY, November 2rd 2010, Lot 25)
Estimate US$12,000,000-18,000,000
Lot Sold. European Trade

Composed of interpenetrating sections of blue sky and yellow mountains, L'Air is Miró's evocation of his native Spain, as well as Catalunya, the region in which he was born, raised and maintained his ancestral family home. The bright red aspect seen in the various personages and objects that inhabit this landscape join with the yellow earth to make up the traditional heraldic colors which compose the flags of both Spain and Catalunya. Deep blue, bright red, and vivid yellow--these primary colors raise their voices in celebration, as whimsical beings and odd objects float and tumble about. The artist's title suggests the joyous freedom of flight, a miraculous buoyancy that has lifted these creatures far above the events and cares of the world below. There is, however, an ominious subtext that informs these strange occurences. The time is 1938; Miró painted L'Air under the widening specter of civil war in Spain. Ranging across the yellow landscape is a slithering red serpent, whose mustachioed visage is perhaps a caricature of General Francisco Franco, El Caudillo, the leader of the fascist uprising that has torn Spain apart. [...]

Property from a Distinguished Private Collection: Four Modern Masterpieces

newsfromsothebys201011

Amedeo MODIGLIANI (1884-1920)
Nu assis sur un divan (La Belle Romaine), 1917
Signed Modigliani (lower right)
Oil on canvas, 100x65cm

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$68,962,500 (£42,961,936) (€49,105,649) (Sotheby's NY, November 2st 2010, Lot 7)
Estimate Upon Request (In excess of US$40 million)
Lot Sold. Anonymous

***RECORD FOR THE ARTIST AT AUCTION***

Nu assis sur un divan (La Belle Romaine) exemplifies Modigliani's conquest of the nude, a subject that is considered his greatest accomplishment in painting. Continuing the tradition of Botticelli's Venus, Velazquez's Rokeby Venus, Ingres' Baigneuse turque and Manet's Olympia, it ranks among the definitive nudes in the history of Western art.

Few pictures explore the pleasures of the flesh with such candor, intimacy and immediate appeal. Modigliani believed that "to paint a woman is to possess her."Indeed, her availability to engage with us is undeniable, with her rosy thigh projecting into the foreground. The tilt of her head, piled with lustrous black hair, the strained exposure of the neck, the arch of her brow and the glint in her eyes all accentuate the full complicitness of this woman in the art of seduction. Captivating the imagination with her sensual appeal, La Belle Romaine is nothing less than a goddess of the modern era. [...]

Property from a Private European Collection (acquired at Sotheby's, New York, November 11, 1999, Lot 125, from a Private Collection, Asia)
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$16,777,500 (Estimate US$12,000,000-16,000,000)

Claude MONET (1840-1926)
Le Bassin aux Nymphéas, 1917-19
Stamped with the signature twice on the reverse
Oil on canvas, 97.5x198.4cm

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$24,722.500 (£15,401,508) (€17,603,979) (Sotheby's NY, November 2st 2010, Lot 13)
Estimate US$20,000,000-30,000,000
Lot Sold Private American Collector

The water lily pond was the defining motif of the last two-and-a-half decades of Monet's life. How this beautiful and visually dynamic subject came to be the focus of Monet's artistic output can be traced back to 1883, when the artist moved to Giverny, where he rented a house with a large garden. Thanks to his ever-increasing financial success, he was able to buy the property outright in the early 1890s and eventually purchased a large adjacent plot of land. It was here in 1893 that he began to construct his famous water gardens and lily pond, fed by water from a nearby river. During 1901-02, Monet enlarged the pond, replanted the edges with bamboo, rhododendron, Japanese apple and cherry trees. Towards the end of his life, he told a visitor to his studio "It took me some time to understand my water lilies. I planted them purely for pleasure; I grew them with no thought of painting them. A landscape takes more than a day to get under your skin. And then, all at once, I had the revelation - how wonderful my pond was - and reached for my palette. I've hardly had any other subject since that moment" (as cited in Stephan Koja, Claude Monet, Österreichische Galerie-Belvedere, Vienna, 1996, p. 146). [...]

Property sold to benefit Yougarts, the core program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (acquired at Sotheby's, New York, November 16, 1998, Lot 10, from The Reader's Digest Collection, Pleasantville, New York)
Lot Sold. Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$9,902.500 (Estimate US$9,000,000-12,000,000)

Henri MATISSE (1869-1954)
Danseuse dans le fauteuil, sol en damier, August 16th-20th, 1942
Signed H. Matisse (lower left)
Oil on canvas, 46x55cm

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$20,802.500 (£12,959,444) (€14,812,692) (Sotheby's NY, November 2st 2010, Lot 24)
Estimate US$12,000,000-18,000,000
Lot Sold Anonymous

Danseuse dans le fauteuil, sol en damier brilliantly exemplifies what Matisse called "the colour of ideas." This visually arresting canvas marked the begining of a revolutionary campaign in Matisse's art in the fall of 1942, when he would eliminate extraneous details that characterized his depictions of Odalisqes in the 1920s. Instead, he turned his focus more exclusively towards the essential components of form and color. The present work encapsulates this new direction of his art, with its sharp tonal color contrasts and confident, linear clarity. "I will now begin to paint with the same ardour as I have drawn," Matisse proclaimed in 1942, and surely this canvas has much of the same vigour and spontaneity of his drawings (quoted in Matisse, A Second Life (exhibition catalogue), Musée Luxembourg, 2005, p. 108). Matisse's highly stylized portrayal of the sensuous model ensconced in a plush armchair makes no attempt at anatomical naturalism, prefacing the linear simplicity of the colorful cut-outs that would dominate his art in years to come. [...]

Property from a Private European Collection (acquired at Sotheby's, London, June 19, 2007, Lot 15)
Lot Sold Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium £10,996,000 (Estimate £8,000,000-12,000,000)

235 milhões de euros por 534 obras de arte

Durante esta semana realizam-se os leilões de impressionismo e arte moderna na Christie’s (dia 2 e 3 de Fevereiro) e na Sotheby’s (dia 3 e 4 de Fevereiro) de Londres. Entre as múltiplas obras impressionistas e de arte moderna, as duas leiloeiras apresentam uma selecção de pinturas, esculturas e obras sobre papel com o valor total estimado entre 163 milhões de euros e 235 milhões de euros, para um total de 534 lotes.

A atenção da leiloeira e de qualquer apreciador estará concentrada em três dos lotes apresentadas pela Sotheby’s (no dia 3 de Fevereiro), as pinturas a óleo Pichet et Fruits Sur Une Table, de 1893-94 (proveniente de uma colecção privada europeia), de Paul Cézanne, e Kirche in Cassone (Landschaft Mit Zypressen), de 1913 (este óleo sobre tela desapareceu da colecção de familiares do industrial do aço Austro-húngaro Viktor e Paula Zuckerkandl durante o período da Segunda Grande Guerra, e foi entretanto restituída aos seus descendentes), de Gustav Klimt, e a escultura L’Homme Qui Marche I, concebida em 1960 (da propriedade da instituição financeira Dresdner Bank AG), de Alberto Giacometti. Cada uma das peças está estimada por um valor superior a onze milhões de euros.

É raro apareceram no mercado peças desta qualidade, mas a selecção conduzida pelas diferentes casas leiloeiras e a importância da peças apresentadas só vêm confirmar o interesse dos coleccionadores em obras já emolduradas pela história da arte.

Published at NS'212/IN#108, Mercado da Arte (70), (Diário de Notícias N.º 51432 e Jornal de Notícias N.º 243/122), 30 de Janeiro de 2010. Portugal Gustav Klimt, Kirche in Cassone (Landschaft Mit Zypressen), 1913. Courtesy Sotheby's 2010