CHRISTIE’S ◦ NEW YORK ◦ APRIL 18-20
New York – Christie’s announces Classic Week in New York, which brings together six auctions across 19th Century European Art, Old Masters, Antiquities, The Exceptional Sale of decorative arts and Classical Japanese and Korean Art. Highlights include works by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), a gilt-bronze seated figure of Buddha from the 7th century, a rare Egyptian sculpture of a sacred bull, newly discovered paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder and the Le Nain Brothers, and a group of Property from La Salle University led by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Virgil Reading from the Aenei. Concluding the week, The Exceptional Sale will offer Carole King’s Steinway & Sons ‘Model M’ Grand Piano and Daniel Craig’s personal Aston Martin, numbered 007 and sold to benefit a non-profit, The Opportunity Network. The exhibitions at Christie’s Rockefeller Center Galleries open to the public on April 13, and the auctions will take place April 18-20.
Japanese & Korean Art | April 18 at 10am
This sale comprises 151 lots and features fine screens, scrolls, calligraphy, woodcut prints, ceramics, lacquer, metalwork, and armor. Among the works in the sale, highlights include the iconic image, In the Well of the Great Wave off Kanagawa, and a hanging scroll Kaosho Rochishin by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Other highlights include a fine russet-iron helmet and Karura (Garuda) mask and a pair of cloisonné enamel Imperial vases from the Meiji period made by a famous Imperial court artist Namikawa Sosuke that have been shown in several major museums in Japan and Taiwan. The sale also presents Korean works of art including a gilt-bronze seated figure of Buddha from the 7th century, a buncheong moon flask from the Joseon dynasty, a blue-and-white porcelain dragon jar, Joseon Dynasty, and Park Sookeun’s painting, Scene on a village street, 1962.
Antiquities | April 18 at 12pm
Leading the sale is a rare Egyptian granodiorite sacred bull, one of the finest examples to survive from Antiquity both in terms of its quality, refinement of details and excellent state of preservation. The sale features a special collection, Eternal Egypt, from a New York Private Collection, which includes an Egyptian limestone statue of Sekhemankhptah. Additional sale highlights include a magnificent Roman marble torso of the Doryphoros of Polykleitos circa 1st century A.D. from a private collection, a large Roman olive-green glass ‘lotus bud’ beaker, and a monumental granite head of King Nectanebo II from the 30th dynasty, which boasts an illustrious provenance, tracing its lineage back to Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke (1656-1733), who assembled an impressive collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities at Wilton House. Rounding out the sale is Property from a Swiss Collector which offers 50 lots of Near Eastern, Egyptian, Greek and Roman glass, mosaic glass fragments, and jewelry.
19TH Century European Art | April 18 at 2pm
Led by two paintings by Willian Adolphe Bouguereau from a Royal collection, the 19th Century European Art sale offers a strong selection of 63 lots of fresh to the market paintings and works on paper by artists who reflect the extraordinary diversity of this pivotal period of art history. Additional highlights include property from La Salle University including Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s important Virgil Reading from the Aenei painted for his second wife and Frits Thaulow’s Midnight Mass. Also featured are Johan Barthold Jongkind’s Patineurs à Maassluis from the Dr. and Mrs. Jerome S. Coles collection, and an Orientalist John Singer Sargent painted on his travels in Egypt while the artist was preparing for the bravura Boston Public Library commission. There is a particularly strong group of paintings by artists of the Belle Époque, including works by Jean Béraud, Mihály Munkácsy, Jean-François Raffaëlli, and Paul César Helleu, as well as Barbizon paintings led by the cover lot, Trois paysannes causant dans une cour rustique by one of the movement’s most renowned artists, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
Old Masters | April 19 at 10am
The Old Masters sale features important newly discovered works such as Lucas Cranach the Elder’s Portrait of John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, a work that has been missing for almost 80 years, recently returned to the rightful heirs of Fritz Gutmann – and a very rare signed and dated painting by the Le Nain Brothers representing Saint Jerome, recently included in a major retrospective of the artists’ work. Another recently discovered work is Vigée Le Brun’s Portrait of Tatyana Borisovna Potemkina, which has never been on the market, and it was included in the monographic exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Grand Palais, Paris. The top lot of the sale is Ruben’s A satyr holding a basket of grapes and quinces with a nymph which was included in the seminal exhibition A House of Art: Rubens as Collector organized by the Rubenshuis in 2004. Additional highlights in the sale include Gossart’s The Virgin and Child, a beautiful example of early 16th Century Flemish painting, and Mor and Sánchez Coello’s evocative Portrait of Alessandro Farnese in Armor. Also on offer is a group of property from La Salle University including paintings by Hubert Robert, Antonio della Corna, and Domenico Gargiulo. The sale also features a selection of works from the Estate of Dr. George S Heyer Jr.
Old Master Paintings and Sculpture | April 19 at 2pm
The Old Master Paintings and Sculpture sale offers works at accessible price points, ranging from the Renaissance to the 19th Century. Highlights include still lifes by Abrosius Bosschaert I and Jan Breughel II; a dramatic and elegant Portrait of Viscountess Hinchingbrook by Sir Thomas Lawrence and a Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée Return of Abraham to the Land of Canaan, both part of a group of works from La Salle University; a bronze figure of a bather from a model by Giambologna; a Bicci di Lorenzo panel from the early 1400s; and property from the Estate of George S. Heyer.
The Exceptional Sale | April 20 at 11am
The Exceptional Sale comprises a rich variety of 27 bespoke pieces. Leading the sale is an exceptional 1619 Dutch Silver Ewer by Adam Van Vianen depicting the legend of Marcus Curtius, created in the auricular style at the height of the Dutch Golden Age. Additional decorative art highlights include a George II scarlet and gilt Japanned bureau-cabinet attributed to Giles Grendey, a pair of ‘fauteuils d’angle’ supplied to the Comtesse de Provence, a royal coffer made for the personal use of Marie-Antoinette with her coat-of-arms as Queen, and a grand bureau à cylindre dit ‘Bureau Du Roi Louis XV’ by Alfred Beurdeley from the collection of Jack and Eileen Feather, Pebble Beach. The sale spans works from antiquity, with a Roman Marble Hercules, from circa 1st Century B.C.-1st Century A.D., up to present day with Carole King’s Steinway & Sons ‘Model M’ Grand Piano and Daniel Craig’s personal Aston Martin, numbered 007 and sold to benefit a non-profit, The Opportunity Network