Auction Highlights: Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale

Marc Chagall, Le Paysan au puits, 1952. Estimate £150,000–200,000.

This unique work , executed in 1952, is the finest example of Marc Chagall’s ceramics to appear at auction in recent years. Inspired by the local pottery production he encountered in the South of France in the 1950s, Chagall adapted the traditional forms to create a compelling series of technically accomplished ceramics painted and glazed in his distinctive whimsical style.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Vincent Everarts

Henry Moore, Reclining Figure: Pointed Head, 1982. Estimate £450,000–550,000.

Conceived in 1982, Reclining Figure: Pointed Head dates from the height of Henry Moore’s mature œuvre, when he had mastered the most technically complex expressions of sculptural form. It explores the most iconic theme of the sculptor’s entire corpus—that of the reclining figure—to powerful effect.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Pablo Picasso, Pomme et verre, 1923. Estimate £450,000–650,000.

An exquisite still life from the 1920s, Picasso’s Pomme et verre has a compelling sense of three-dimensionality, created by the textured application of oil and sand. The apple and glass are presented in an undefined space with an economy of means that brings them to the brink of abstraction to create an effect of arresting modernity.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Buste de Femme, 1917. Estimate £400,000–600,000.

Buste de femme is a magnificent portrait of one of Renoir’s favourite muses, Andrée Heuschling. Renoir’s magnificent use of colour infuses the young girl’s cheeks with warm and rich tones, echoing the vibrant shades of the pink flowers adorning the sitter’s hat.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Henri Laurens, Nu couché à la draperie or Femme nue couchée, conceived in 1927. Estimate £250,000–350,000.

Conceived in 1927, Nu couché à la draperie is a magnificent example of Laurens’ technical mastery and post-Cubist approach to form. The angular lines that characterised the artist’s earlier sculptural œuvre are softened with the gently curvilinear forms exuding a remarkable sensuality.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
1 March | London

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Georges Rouault, Pierrot, 1937–38. Estimate £250,000–350,000.

Painted in 1937-38, Pierrot is a striking example of one of Georges Rouault’s most expressive and beloved series. A pensive and melancholy stock character from the Commedia dell'Arte who pines for the love of Columbine, in the 19th Century the character of Pierrot was lifted out of this circumscribed world and into the larger realm of myth by artists such as Pablo Picasso and Max Beckmann. For Rouault, these nomadic clowns represented innocence, soulful sensitivity and naiveté, and were a release from his focus on the darker images of life.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Vincent Everarts

Théo van Rysselberghe, Canal en Flandre, 1894. Estimate £500,000–700,000.

Painted in 1894, at the height of his pointillist period, Canal en Flandre is a striking example of Théo van Rysselberghe's mastery of the technique. The iconic, tree-lined Damme Canal in Belgium, is here rendered with dramatic perspective, seeming to vibrate with colour and life.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Tänzerin in einem Sessel (Dancer in an Armchair), circa 1908. Estimate £250,000–350,000.

Executed circa 1908, during the highly formative years of Die Brücke, the sinuous, energetic nature of this work marks a crucial shift in Kirchner’s œuvre. Free-flowing, rhythmic strokes of vividly coloured crayons express the spirit and sensuality of Kirchner’s sitter, a dancer who is seated with her skirt in artful disarray.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Louis Valtat, Les Hôtes de la mer, 1906. Estimate £80,000–120,000.

Depicted in vivid colours with broad brushstrokes of thick paint that evoke the unfettered expressionism for which the Fauves were known, Valtat’s 1906 Les Hôtes de la mer is a jubilant celebration of marine life. Red crabs, cobalt blue lobsters, murky green sting rays and silvery sharks populate the thrilling golden yellow backdrop.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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René Magritte, L’Émpire de la réflexion, 1947. Estimate £250,000–350,000.

Within L’Émpire de la réflexion , René Magritte subverts the viewer’s expectations by challenging the way in which we perceive the world around us. In place of the position habitually occupied by the moon hovers the earth, a celestial body floating in the sky, with the continents appearing in unexpected positions as if reflected in a mirror.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Bernard Buffet, Toréador, 1958. Estimate £250,000–350,000.

Exuding a visceral power and strength, Toréador was painted in 1958, when Bernard Buffet was at the peak of his critical and creative success. The toréador and the wider subject of the bullfight were to become recurring themes for the artist, and this oil on canvas, striking for its scale and size, stands as a powerful example.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Albert Marquet, L’Estaque, circa 1916-18 . Estimate £300,000–500,000.

Painted circa 1916-18, L’Estaque is an exquisite example of Marquet’s remarkable ability to distil the particular qualities of marine light and atmosphere into a painting. This oil depicts the charming port of L'Estaque, a small French fishing village on the bay of Marseilles.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Paul Cézanne, Le Verger, circa 1895. £350,000–450,000

Executed circa 1895, the exquisitely constructed composition of Le Verger is dominated by a group of slender, elegant trees, their tops disappearing beyond the edges of the sheet. The branches sprawl across the surface in the manner of untamed creeping tendrils, intertwining and creating harmonious patterns, whilst the pared down nature of the artist’s palette lend an increasing level of abstraction to Cézanne’s landscape.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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Pablo Picasso, Baigneuse et cabine de bains, 1938. Estimate £350,000–450,000.

Reminiscent of Picasso's works executed a decade earlier featuring his blonde lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, Baigneuse et cabine de bains attests to Picasso's practice of referencing multiple lovers within the same image. The figure in the present work is both voluptuous and angular – possessing the features of both Dora Maar and Marie-Thérèse Walter – and it is this conflation of their characteristics which is central to the artist’s work.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
29 February | London

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