New York | United States
Christie’s announces European Art Part I sale, a new curated sale that will be dedicated to 19th-century European masterpieces and will take place in New York on 31 October. The global tour of highlights will take place in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London. Early highlights also include Courbet, Bouguereau, Burne- Jones, Hammershoi and Waterhouse. This global-tour will take place throughout September and is sure to be a source of inspiration and education with many of these pieces not being accessible to the public for decades.
With 19th century Europe witnessing a plethora of revolutions in the political sphere there were equally constant waves of revolution that washed over the cultural and artistic worlds. The most noticeable change that one of these ‘revolutions’ brought was Romanticism, taking centre stage between 1800 to 1850. The movement was a challenge to the prevailing enlightenment beliefs. It emerged particularly in art and literature to understand the freedom of expression, of emotions and personality. Some other movements such as Realism, Naturalism and of course Impressionism also made waves through European art at that time. As such, the Christie’s European Art Part I sale will be a wonderful ‘time capsule’ and representation of how these periods changed the way we see, interact and relate to art.
Following recent strong prices and new world auction records achieved for Delacroix and Corot in the Peggy and David Rockefeller Collection, the sale presents a unique platform for the most renowned artists of this diverse and often revolutionary era of art. Sourced internationally from important private collections, the Christie’s European Art Part I sale will be held during Christie’s Classic Week sale series, coinciding with TEFAF New York and leading into November’s 20th Century Week auctions.
Deborah Coy, Head of Department, New York, comments, “European Art Part I will build upon the global demand seen in recent years for masterpiece-level art. 19th Century masterpieces have performed with increasingly strong results, driven by competition from traditional collectors and collectors of Modern and Contemporary Art, as well as a notable increase in participation from Asia.”
Highlights for the New York sale on 31 October include an important and rare work by Gustave Courbet, Femme endormie aux cheveux roux, that was formerly in the collection of Henri Matisse, and is part of a series of important nudes painted by the artist in the mid-1860s.
Other highlights include Edward Burne-Jones’ Paradise with the Adoration of the Lamb, a masterpiece of the artist’s oeuvre that was formerly in the collection of Yves Saint Laurent, William Adolphe Bouguereau’s Récolte de noisettes, from a royal collection and also formerly in the collections of Diamond Jim Brady and William Randolph Hearst, and Vilhelm Hammershøi’s Interior with an Easel, Bregade 25, which was acquired by the family of the present owner through the artist’s friend Leonard Borwick in the same year it was painted.
For more information or to register for the sale click here.
