Christie’s will present Maîtres Anciens: Peintures-Sculptures, two Old Masters sales held in Paris in June. More than 200 works will come to auction, of which 150 will be offered online, with a group of paintings by Flemish and Dutch masters leading the live sale on 11 June.
Among the highlights is a previously unknown work by Adriaen Isenbrandt (1480 to 1551), offered at auction for the first time, estimated at €1,200,000 to €1,800,000. The triptych of the Vierge à l’ Enfant assise sur un trône richement sculpté, which has never been seen in public, illustrates the continuity of the work of Hans Memling in the art of Bruges in the early 16th century; its central panel is based on a Memling painting in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.
A rediscovered Standard Bearer by Cornelis van Haarlem (1562 to 1638), estimated at €500,000 to €800,000, comes from the collection of the sculptor Carlo Marochetti (1806 to 1867), who acquired it in the 19th century for the Château de Vaux-sur-Seine, where it remained in the family until its recent rediscovery. Dated 1592, it is the second earliest known dated portrait of a standard bearer, its composition inspired by the engravings of van Haarlem’s friend Hendrick Goltzius.
French female artists are also represented, notably by Louyse Moillon (1610 to 1696), a leading still-life painter of the 17th century, with the Fruit Seller, estimated at €500,000 to €700,000. Sarah Bernhardt (1844 to 1923), known as an actress but also a painter and sculptor, is represented by a marble sculpture, Le Chant, estimated at €60,000 to €100,000. Further sculpture highlights include a profile of Christ from the entourage of Simone Bianco, estimated at €50,000 to €80,000, and a terracotta Head of Pluto attributed to François Girardon (1628 to 1715), sculptor to Louis XIV, estimated at €150,000 to €250,000.
The online sale also features work by Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761 to 1845), who is credited with more than 4,000 portraits and whose work is held by the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Twenty-one of his portraits are offered online at an estimate of €1,000 to €2,000 each.
Eight works from the Schloss collection will be offered online. Adolphe Schloss (1842 to 1910) assembled one of the most significant private collections of Old Masters in France, numbering over 330 works. Hidden in the French countryside during the Second World War, the paintings were seized in 1943 by German and Vichy agents, with the majority intended for Hitler’s planned Linz museum, and much of the collection was stolen a second time in Munich at the end of the war. The plunder was documented by the curator Rose Valland in her book Le Front de l’art. Many paintings remain missing; the works now offered follow the restitution of paintings by Arie de Vois, Karel de Moor, Willem Kalf and Joost van Geel, reunited with three further recently restituted works.
The online sale also presents the collection of Fritz and Sabine Payer, Zurich merchants specialising in 16th and 17th century German, Prussian and Swiss silverwork. The 35 lots, acquired over the last 40 years, trace the history of German Renaissance and Baroque silver, with works from the production centres of Augsburg, Nuremberg, Basel and Breslau. The centrepiece is a silver-gilt mounted ostrich egg cup and cover by Sylvester Eberlin, dated 1580 to 1590 and made in Augsburg, estimated at €100,000 to €150,000.
(Press Release)
