Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale at Sotheby’s
FEATURING THE GILDED AGE REVISITED: PROPERTY OF A DISTINGUISHED AMERICAN COLLECTION
Jean Béraud (French, 1849-1935)LE PARC MONCEAUSigned Jean Bèraud and dated Xbre 1887 (lower right)
Painted in October 1887
Oil on panel
9 1/8 by 12 7/8 in. (23.2 by 32.7 cm)
Estimate: $150,000-$200,000
PROVENANCE
Madame H. Antoine-May (acquired by 1933)
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 18, 1983, lot 21
Richard Green Fine Paintings, Ltd., London
Acquired from the above.
EXHIBITED
Paris, Exposition du Cercle de l’Union artistique, 1888, n.n.
Paris, L’Union interalliée, Exposition des cent portraits, 1922, no. 13 (titled Portrait de M.A.M. et de ses fils)
Paris, Palais du Louvre, Pavillon de Marsan, Le Décor de la vie sous la IIIe République de 1870 à 1900, 1933, no. 23 (titled Monsieur Antoine-May et ses fils)
Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Jean Béraud, Peintre de la vie parisienne, 1936-37, no. 23, illustrated in the catalogue (titled Portrait de M. Antoine-May et de ses fils (Devant la grille du parc Monceau))
London, Richard Green Fine Paintings, Ltd., Exhibition of 19th and 20th Century French Paintings, 1983, no. 2, illustrated in the catalogue
LITERATURE
“Les Expositions des Cercles,” in L’Artiste, 1888, vol. CXXVII, no. 1, p. 190
“Les Oeuvres et les Hommes,” in Le Correspondant, Paris, 1888, vol. 150, p. 728
Auguste Dalligny, “L’Exposition du Cercle de l’Union artistique,” in Le Journal des arts, February 14-17, 1888, p. 1
Ernest Hoschedé, “Exposition de l’Union Artistique,” in L’Événement, February 15, 1888, p. 3
Paul Mantz, “Exposition du Cercle de l’Union artistique,” in Le Temps, February 28, 1888, p. 3
Louis de Fourcaud, “À travers les expositions,” in La Revue illustrée, April 1, 1888, pp. 247-48, illustrated p. 245
Patrick Offenstadt, Jean Béraud 1849-1935, The Belle Époque: A Dream of Times Gone By, Catalogue Raisonné, Cologne, 1999, no. 5, illustrated p. 89
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Christie’s
Sale 16721
Lot 565
Edward Henry Potthast
Low Tide
Oil on board
12 x 16 in.
Hammer: $125,000
Heritage Auctions
Lot 68102
Theodore Earl Butler
Bethesda Fountain, Central Park, New York, 1915
Oil on canvas
24 x 28 in.
Hammer: $14,000
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Christie’s
Sale 15973
Lot 439
Jean Dufy
Environs de Boussay
Oil on canvas
15 x 21 ¾ in.
Hammer: $25,000
Sotheby’s
The Ruth and Jack Bloom Collection
Thomas Molesworth
Floor Lamp
61 1/4 in.
Hammer: $20,000
Sotheby’s
The Ruth and Jack Bloom Collection
Thomas Molesworth
Two-Tier Side Table
22 1/4 x 16 1/4 x 27 1/2 in.
Hammer: $38,000
Sotheby’s
The Ruth and Jack Bloom Collection
Thomas Molesworth
Door
80 x 40 in.
Hammer: $110,000
Sotheby’s
The Ruth and Jack Bloom Collection
Thomas Molesworth
Club Chair
31 1/2 x 28 x 31 1/2 in.
Hammer: $24,000
OUR SERVICES
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ART COLLECTED WITH PASSION
The late Walid Juffali collected art with passion. As his daughter Dina emphasises, “He bought with his heart, always collecting things that he loved, things that he was attracted to… the value of art is how it feels. It’s so personal – that’s what makes it interesting, it’s very emotional.”
The upcoming sale of Walid Juffali’s collection on 26th March through Bonhams at Bishopsgate House shows the magnitude of the collector’s passion for art. The collection spans centuries counting a vast Chihuly chandelier, and works by masters such as Andy Warhol, Picasso, Joan Miro, Marc Chagall, Henri Lebasque and Leonard Foujita. There are also collections of porcelain, silver, English and French furniture, books, fine wines and objets d’art.
WALID’S LIFE OF SERVICE
Philanthropy played an important role in Walid’s life. His mother Suad al-Husseini is a renowned philanthropist in the Middle East, and his family have decided to donate a proportion of the sale proceeds to Macmillan Cancer Support and Cancer Research in his memory.
“The Fine Art Group is delighted to be working with the Juffali family on the sale of this unique and incredibly personal collection. The many works available in the sale illustrate a true richness of taste, from the refined period furniture to the daring glass works of Dale Chihuly. From the monumental sculptures of Fernando Botero to the intricate antique clocks and silverware, the collection demonstrates the interests of a person with deep aesthetic sensibilities. It is rare that such a special and diverse collection comes to sale and it has been an honour to be so deeply involved in the proceedings.”
Throughout Bishopsgate house, works by Warhol and Picasso, Miró and Chagall indicate Walid’s passion for modern art. “The contemporary movement wasn’t so much what was valued by Middle Eastern society at the time,” Dina explains. “You had your Picassos, to them that was Contemporary. But life is a treasure hunt – you have to go out and find what you’re meant to have, and Miró spoke to my father on a very bold level – they’re quite abstract but it gives you a lot of emotion, it has something to it. It’s not like a Calder, which is very bold and straightforward; Miro has layers and nuance.”
SCULPTURES
One of the most striking lots is Fernando Botero’s Adam and Eve two monumental bronze statues on the huge stretch of lawn overlooking Windsor Great Park. “My father first saw Botero’s work in Monaco,” says Dina, “and he always felt it should be seen out of doors. I mean, everyone loves Botero… and he just thought, that’s a piece and a half!”
The sale will include two sculptures by Dale Chihuly commissioned by Walid for Bishopsgate House; a magnificent chandelier placed above the blue-tiled pool and Float Boat, a sailing fantasia rendered in glass on the grounds. “My father met Chihuly before he was a big name. I remember Dale coming over to have a look at the space – I’ll never forget his paint-splattered boots – and he thought ‘Why not, let’s do it’. This was before the V&A got its installation.” Dina explains how her father bonded with Chihuly, “They were both quite creative characters, so they meshed really well – and it became effortless for Dale to create the most perfect, organic pieces.”
The Chihuly sculptures are a great example of how personal Walid’s collecting process was, and how much he was led by his heart.
26 March 2018
Bishopsgate House, Englefield Green, Egham TW20 0XT
Previews at Bishopsgate House Friday 23 – Sunday 25 March
View the online catalogue here.
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MODERN & CONTEMPORARY WORKS OF ART
Freeman’s
Lot 99
Sam Gilliam (American, B. 1933)
IDYLLS I
Estimate: $50,000-$80,000
Sold: $370,000 (Hammer with Buyer’s Premium)
19TH & 20TH CENTURY SCULPTURE
Including works from Cecil Howard’s studio
Sotheby’s
Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (French, 1827-1905)
LA JUIVE D’ALGER (THE JEWESS OF ALGIERS)
29 ¾ in.
Estimate: £60,000-£80,000
Sold: £248,750 (Hammer with Buyer’s Premium)
RAGO MODERN DESIGN SALE
Rago
Xu Beihong (Chinese, 1895-1953)
Galloping Horse
Estimate: $294,000-$411,000
Sold: $710,000
POLY INTERNATIONAL AUCTION CO.
George Nakashima (American, 1905-1990)
NAKASHIMA STUDIO – Fine Minguren I coffee table
Estimate: $20,000-$30,000
Sold: $32,500
OUR SERVICES
Offering expert Advisory across sectors, our dedicated Advisory and Sales Agency teams combine strategic insight with transparent advice to guide our clients seamlessly through the market. We always welcome the opportunity to discuss our strategies and services in depth.
A rediscovered masterpiece of Cuban modernism
Amelia Peláez (1896-1968)
El Jardín
Gouache on paper
51 1/5 × 37 4/5 in.
Estimate: $400,000-$600,000
Sold: $375,000
FROM THE CATALOGUE
Amelia Peláez is the most extraordinary example of how vigorous artists should approximate modern art currents in Paris.
– David Alfaro Siqueiros, July 1943
A rediscovered masterpiece of Cuban modernism, El Jardín (1943) radiates with Baroque intensity. Painted in Havana in the early 1940s, a time of relative political and economic prosperity, the work is an outstanding achievement of Latin American modern painting. Depicted in the artist’s signature style, El Jardín resonates through a rhythm of curvilinear outlines and pulsating arabesques set against a structured space of impassable zig-zag patterns. No other work by the artist presents a richer mosaic of tropical color and exotic vegetation.
A key figure of the Cuban avant-garde—and the only woman included in the seminal exhibition Modern Cuban Painters at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1944—Peláez constructed her own brand of Cubism: a formal vocabulary of elaborate ornate elements derived from nineteenth century Cuban architectural decoration and furniture design. As was often the case with women artists working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Peláez found rich inspiration in her immediate environment: the intimate realm of her family home and garden were not only easily accessible but also suitable habitats conforming to the proper role of women in a predominantly conservative society. It was there, in the privacy of her luscious garden, that the artist found herself surrounded by colorful “…red ixoras; queen’s wreath with violet, purple, and blue flowers; crape myrtles and aralia; or the hibiscus which offers itself in red, cream, yellow, salmon, solferino and hybrid… there were also geraniums, begonias, frangipani, jasmine, orchids; lots of ferns, elephant ears and areca palms.” (1)
Along with her Cuban counterparts Mario Carreño, Mariano Rodríguez, and René Portocarrero, Peláez understood the symbolic power of colonial architecture as a referential sign, one that could adequately testify to the cultural autonomy of its people, or their cubanidad. While most of her work from this seminal period retains certain architectural references, El Jardín appears to be an exception: by purposely distracting our attention with an all-over composition, the viewer is prevented from isolating a single element. Instead, all reference to reality is replaced by elaborate and fantastical patterns that deviate from floral to organic form.
Eventually the eye finds refuge in the indiscernible figure of a woman located in the upper half of the composition. Abstractly depicted in a mask-like face, she is practically concealed by the overwhelming vegetation that surrounds her, as if nature itself were purposely obscuring her presence and purpose. An intensely powerful composition, the work oscillates between excess and restraint, liberation and control. El Jardín is a triumph of painting built on visual contradictions resolved by the artist’s mastery of color and paint.
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(1) Fernando G. Campoamor, “La obra viva de Amelia Peláez,” Bohemia, n.d, pp. 47-52.
“I paint from remembered landscapes that I carry with me – and remembered feelings of them, which of course become transformed. I could certainly never mirror nature. I would more like to paint what it leaves with me.”
This untitled oil on canvas, executed in 1960 by Joan Mitchell (1925-92), had been acquired by our client at auction in 2006.
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Oil on canvas
1960
28 1/2 by 28 3/4 in.
Estimate: $400,00-$600,000
Sold: $466,000 (Hammer with Buyer’s Premium)
PROVENANCE
Martha Jackson Gallery, New York
Private Collection, Peru (acquired from the above in April 1967)
Sotheby’s, New York, May 11, 2006, lot 170
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale
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The Collection of Robert & Barbara Safford
In 2013 our team acted for the Safford family in the dispersal of antiques from Vaux Hill, a 20-room country estate with pre-Revolutionary origins in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
Upon the advice of The Fine Art Group, the 274 selected lots were consigned to auction in a single-owner sale that was promoted to the international marketplace with previews in both London and New York.
After an international tour and much media fanfare, the auction of the Selected Contents of Vaux Hill: The Collection of Robert & Barbara Safford achieved $3.9 million in sales—more than tripling the auction’s estimate—and set an auction record. Buyers from around the globe packed Freeman’s third floor gallery for a chance to bid on the 274 works spanning two centuries. Decorative arts from royal and continental craftsmen KPM, the Russian Imperial Porcelain Factory, the House of Hanover, and Louis XV were offered in the sale. Freeman’s attracted nearly 400 potential buyers via the phones, online, and in the room. What would have normally been a two and a half hour auction took place over five hours, as the sale drew fierce bidding.
The top lot was a hand-painted Russian urn produced by Nicholas I’s Imperial Porcelain Factory in St. Petersburg, estimated at $150,000-200,000. After brisk competition from within the room, on the phones, and the internet, it went to the highest bidder in the room for $494,000. Urns of this size are unique and few have survived as they were extremely difficult to cast and very delicate. This was one of several large continental vases sold yesterday (lots 7, 64, 107, 126 152), which attracted heavy bidding and successful results.
An auction record was set for a rare gilt bronze mounted porcelain tall case clock by the Berlin Konigliche Porzellan Manufaktur (KPM), circa 1895, which brought $242,500. It is believed to be one of only six in existence produced after a design by Alexander Kips, estimated at $80,000-120,000. One of these six clocks is proudly displayed at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight; it was a gift given to Queen Victoria by her grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Top Lots from Selected Contents of Vaux Hill: The Collection of Robert & Barbara Safford:
- $494,000
Lot 131: Important ormolu mounted Russian imperial hand-painted gilt-decorated porcelain urn. Russian Imperial Porcelain Factory, St. Petersburg, Period of Nicholas I, circa 1836. - $482,500
Lot 107: Rare pair of Russian hand-painted and gilt decorated blue ground vases, 20thcentury. - $254,500
Lot 1: Very fine gilt metal mounted Meissen porcelain and giltwood secretaire cabinet, circa 1880. - $242,500
Lot 39: Important German gilt bronze mounted gilt decorated and hand-painted KPM porcelain tall clock case clock, circa 1895 - $158,500
Lot 84: Large and impressive Sevres style porcelain white ground vase. - $134,500
Lot 154: Fine Continental Louis XVI style gilt-bronze and rhodonite seven-piece desk.
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Alfred C. Breuning of Pennsylvania had acquired Pablo Picasso’s Buste d’Homme, a brush and ink sketch dated 2.8.67, from the Galerie Louise Leiris in Paris in 1969.
Acting for Breuning‘s estate it was consigned for sale at Sotheby’s New York in May 2014 where it sold at for $677,000.
The work was completed in the year Picasso began his famous series of cavaliers and musketeers – believed to be the ailing artist’s recreation of himself as a youthful and sexually potent figure.
Pablo Picasso
Buste d’Homme
Brush and ink and ink wash on paper
29 1/2 by 22 1/8 in.
August 2, 1967.
Estimate: $500,000-$700,000
Sold: $677,000
PROVENANCE
Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Acquired from the above circa 1969
EXHIBITED
Paris, Galerie Louise Leiris, Dessins 1966-1967, 1968, no. 55
LITERATURE
Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso, Oeuvres de 1967 et 1968, vol. XXVII, Paris, 1973, no. 95, illustrated pl. 29
The Picasso Project, ed., Picasso’s Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings and Sculpture, The Sixties II, 1964-1967, San Francisco, 2002, no. 67-322, illustrated p. 377
CATALOGUE NOTE
Buste d’homme is an iconic image that exemplifies both the confrontational style of Picasso’s 1960s art and the iconography of the masculine male that the artist championed in his later years. Executed in 1967, the present work was completed during the very year that Picasso began his series of cavaliers and musketeers. Such works, which are laced with references to masculine virility and sexuality, are believed to be the artist’s recreation of himself, then ailing, as a youthful and sexually potent figure. Here, the misplaced facial features suggest an inner torment, yet the firm, deliberate strokes of ink and frankness of the subject indicate a vigor and masculinity that will come to characterize his series of musketeers and swashbucklers. The work thus references both deterioration and resilience, underscoring the psychological complexity of this transitional period.
Picasso’s exploration of self-image in his art is summarized by Simonetta Fraquelli: “In their seventeenth-century garb, Picasso’s musketeers appear in many guises, some holding swords and some wearing wigs or ornate shoes, others smoking. Some are young, others old, some participate while others are voyeurs. They represent many of the possible ages of the artist, ranging from a child genius to an impotent old man. Like Rembrandt, with whom he now became obsessed, Picasso liked to insert himself into his paintings, in one guise or another. The parallels between the two masters, the Dutchman and the Spaniard, are many: both enjoyed a long and fulfilling career; both felt isolated and misunderstood, if not derided, in their old age; and both obsessively recorded their own decline in their numerous self-portraits” (Simonetta Fraquelli, “Looking at the Past to Defy the Present: Picasso’s Painting, 1946-1973,” in Picasso, Challenging the Past, London, 2009, p. 146).
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Andrew Wyeth’s ‘The Lobster Man’ sold for $103,000 at Freeman’s of Philadelphia in June 2011. Wyeth produced the watercolour of a fisherman clutching his steaming thermos at the behest of the American Artists in New York, with a view to it being used for a Maxwell House Coffee advert. The painting never made it to the billboards and a descendent of our client had acquired it directly from the artist in the 1940s. The work of Wyeth, one of the most revered US artists of the last century, has consistently achieved good results at auction.
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On our advice, ‘The Skier’ (The Ski Runner) by N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945), was consigned for sale at Sotheby’s New York in November 2014 where it sold for $1,205,000.
This much-exhibited picture – illustrated on the cover of the February 1911 edition of The Popular Magazine – had previously been owned by both the artist’s wife and his daughter. It is thought this painting was based on photographs of the artist’s brother Stimson (known as Babe).
“I have just completed, and shipped, on the same train with Babe,” Wyeth wrote, “a cover for the Popular. The most striking and strongest I have done in a long time. The Ski Runner is its title.” It had been bought by our client from a Pennsylvania family in 1998.
N.C. Wyeth
The Skier
Oil on canvas
41 5/8 by 27 1/8 in.
Estimate: $250,000-$350,000
Sold: $1,205,000
OUR SERVICES
Offering expert Advisory across sectors, our dedicated Advisory and Sales Agency teams combine strategic insight with transparent advice to guide our clients seamlessly through the market. We always welcome the opportunity to discuss our strategies and services in depth.