Works by two of the most internationally acclaimed artists were unveiled at Sotheby’s Hong Kong this past week, ahead of Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction in London on 2 March.  A stunning example of Claude Monet’s Nymphéas series, this depiction of the waterlilies at Giverny was painted between 1914 and 1917. The culmination of the artist’ progression towards true abstraction, this ground-breaking series is widely considered his greatest achievement, and this expressive, later work perfectly encapsulates the artist’s vision on a grand scale. Having last been at auction in 1978, the work has not been exhibited since 1995, when it went on view across three museums in Japan. It is now coming to auction from a distinguished Japanese private collection.  The women of Picasso’s life were the fulcrum of his creative genius - essential to his creative and intellectual processes. Picasso’s Buste de femme accoudée, painted on 31 December 1938, charts his evolving relationship with his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, to whom he was ostensibly still devoted at the time, and the increasingly dominant presence of his new lover Dora Maar. Picasso deliberately conflates the two women’s features, to create an image that is a wider celebration of love and imaginative power. The work is painted entirely in shades of grey – the palette reduced to an elegant monochrome. Picasso had a lifelong fascination with this technique, most notably in his great masterpiece Guernica painted the year previously. Here, the technique further emphasises the ambiguity of the sitter, with the viewer left without definitive clues as to their identity. This aspect of his art was celebrated in the 2012-13 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum exhibition “Picasso: Black and White”, in which this work was included.  Also unveiled in Hong Kong was Vincent van Gogh’s Eglogue en Provence - un couple d'amoureux (est. £7-10 million). Painted in March 1888, the month after Van Gogh arrived in Arles, the vibrant work is an intimate depiction of two lovers walking along the bank of a river. Its palette shows the influence of the new quality of light he encountered in the South of France, as well as the artist’s fascination with Japanese prints. The term eglogue in the title denotes a rural idyll, deriving from a Classical form used by the ancient Roman poet Virgil, with the figures acting as an enduring image of love. These three works join the roll call of artworks already announced for the marquee sale, including five further paintings by Monet – charting the artist’s radical journey from Impressionism to Abstraction – a $60 million modern masterpiece by René Magritte, and three of Banksy’s most recognisable pieces, from the collection of music legend Robbie Williams. |