Christie’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on Wednesday, 5 November 2014
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EDOUARD MANET’S, LE PRINTEMPS, 1881
EDOUARD MANET’S, LE PRINTEMPS, 1881
Edouard Manet’s masterpiece portrait, Le Printemps (estimate: $25-35 million).
Encapsulating all the major themes of the early modern period, from nature and femininity to society and fashion, Springtime is one of Manet’s best known and most widely reproduced works, and perfectly exemplifies the revolutionary style that Manet embraced.
Encapsulating all the major themes of the early modern period, from nature and femininity to society and fashion, Springtime is one of Manet’s best known and most widely reproduced works, and perfectly exemplifies the revolutionary style that Manet embraced.
- The portrait depicts the actress Jeanne Demarsy, cast as an allegory of spring. She also appears in the background of Manet’s iconic scene Un bar aux Folies-Bergere. Both paintings were exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1882, and together they sealed Manet’s fame as a titan of modern-era painting.
- This masterwork comes completely fresh to the market, having remained in the same collection for over a century and been on loan for the last two decades at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. Of the 30 paintings that Manet exhibited at the Salon over the course of his lifetime, this is the last remaining in private hands.
- Brooke Lampley, Head of Impressionist and Modern Art comments, “On the heels of the fantastic traveling exhibition Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, of which works by Manet were a keystone, we are delighted to have been entrusted with the sale of Le Printemps. This painting is by the first artist of the modern era, encapsulating all major themes of the early modern period, from nature and femininity to societyand fashion.One of his best known and most widely reproduced works, Le Printemps exemplifies the revolutionary style that Manet embraced.”From the mid-1860s, Manet had established his reputation as the leading master of portraiture among the practitioners of “New Painting,” radically transforming its scope to embrace a dialogue between the traditional canon of art history and contemporary Belle Époque Paris. Actress Jeanne Demarsy is cast as an allegory of spring, a theme artists embraced since antiquity, yet executed in the artist’s ground-breaking painterly style and in a vanguard setting.With an eye to Goya and early Renaissance portraits of young noblewomen, Manet posed Jeanne in profile. He evoked the arrival of spring in his treatment of Jeanne’s specially designed flowered dress, her lacy parasol, her bonnet regaled with blossoms, and the profuse verdant foliage of rhododendrons he painted behind her. Of the four seasons, Manet completed only Le Printemps and L’Automne,)Musée des Beaux-Arts of Nancy).Adrien Meyer, International Director, comments, "In this breathtakingPainting Manet depicts a coquettish but self-assured Jeanne Demarsy as Spring. His distinguished use of black anchors the painting and emphasizes Jeanne's fragility. Manet projects in this masterpiece an idea of the modern woman, feminine and free, attracting yet deflecting the gaze of the viewer. Le Printemps is one of the last museum-quality works by Manet to come to auction. When again will the market offer a picture that truly made Impressionist history?”Le Printemps was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1882, along with Un bar aux Folies-Bergère–the supreme masterpiece of Manet’s oeuvre. Previously, the official Salon system in France had thwarted Manet’s hopes and plans for public success, recognition, and acceptance throughout his career. The submission of these two paintings, however, only a year before the artist’s premature death, would prove triumphant and potentially redefine Manet’s legacy. The works were enthusiastically received and led to a wide-spread call for reproduced images of both.Manet’s friend, the journalist Antonin Proust ,who had suggested the theme of the four seasons to him, was the painting’s first owner in 1883. By 1902, the painting had entered the holdings of the important Impressionist collector J. B. Faure, the famed operatic baritone, who was an avid collector and great patron of Manet. The dealer Durand-Ruel acquired the painting from Faure in 1907 and shipped it to his New York gallery, from which it was purchased in 1909, having remained ever since in private hands.Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in London on 23 June 2014
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LOT SOLD. 3,330,500 GBPPainted in 1879, Jeune femme dans les fleurs (est. £3-4 million/ $5-7million) represents the height of Édouard Manet’s interest in the Impressionist movement. During the 1870s and early 1880s Manet would set aside his more formal compositions and embrace his contemporaries’ passion for painting en plein air. The resulting images, including the present work, are masterpieces of deft, descriptive brushwork, executed in verdant colours which delightfully set off the tranquil subject matter. Jeune femme dans les fleurs was included in an auction of property from Manet’s estate that was held at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, in 1884. The work last appeared at auction in 1998, when Mr. Wilson acquired it from Sotheby’s auction of the Reader’s Digest Collection – one of the first and most significant corporate collections of art in America. Sotheby’s Evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art, 8th February 2011 ![]()
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), La Lecture, deux femmes aux corsages rouge et rose. Est: £2-3million. Photo: Sotheby'sPierre-Auguste Renoir’s La Lecture, deux femmes aux corsages rouge et rose (est: £2-3million) is undoubtedly among the most successful of Renoir’s late large-scale works. It comes to the market with an exceptional history: in 1954, the painting was sold at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris to a private English collector in whose family possession it has remained until now. Its first museum showing since 1938 was in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's landmark exhibition Renoir in the 20th Century held in 2010.
A tender and harmonious portrait, La Lecture is one of the most beautiful, touching and serene of Renoir's late works. Intimate and filled with subtle sensuality, the painting lyrically demonstrates Renoir's masterly ability to portray his figures in an entirely natural way. In later years, success allowed him to paint the sitters who most interested and touched him, especially his family and those with whom he chose to be in contact. Here he magically catches an intimate moment in which two beautiful young women, oblivious to all around them, even the artist, are entranced by the words they are reading.Sotheby's 2014 LOT SOLD. 3,525,000 USD![]()
Sotheby's 2013![]()
LOT SOLD. 1,265,000![]()
Lot. Vendu 1,609,250 GBPÉdouard Manet’s beautifully rendered pastel on canvas Jeune fille en déshabille, 1882 (est: £1-1.5 million) was previously owned by one of the first American collectors of Impressionist art, Mrs Thomas A. Scott, the wife of the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Bought on the advice of the Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt, the pastel depicts a model thought to bear resemblance to the actress Ellen Andrée, who is also believed to be the model for another Manet pastel in the collection of the Louvre and who famously sat for Degas’ L’Absinthe. As in some of Degas’s most sensitive pastel portraits, the model’s delicate beauty here is exquisitely captured. This evocative pastel featured in the first posthumous retrospective of Manet’s work in Paris in 1884.Sotheby's 2010![]()
LOT SOLD. 7,657,250![]()
