Wassily Kandinsky, Murnau, Landschaft mit grünem haus. Estimate £15,000,000–25,000,000. From Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, London, 21 June.
A blazing celebration of colour, Kandinsky’s Expressionist painting Landschaft mit grünem Haus, painted in 1909, is a major early work which captures the moment of transition in the artist’s career when he is on the cusp of moving from figuration to abstraction.
Joan Miró, Femme et oiseaux. Estimate on request. From Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, London, 21 June.
Femme et oiseaux is the eighth composition in Miro's Constellations – a series comprising twenty-three paintings that he produced in under two years, from January 1940 to September 1941. The painting is a mesmerising example of the Miró's celebrated lyricism and freedom of expression: the ground has been brushed, scraped, polished, moistened and rubbed, creating the gradated pockets of light and dark that convey the celestial boundlessness in which the objects float.
Alberto Giacometti, Grande figure. Estimate £15,000,000 –25,000,000. From Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, London, 21 June.
The striking Grande figure, 1947, is cast in bronze with gold patina and stands at 130cm tall. After Giacometti’s return to Paris from his native Switzerland in 1945, he developed what would come to be seen as the eponymous themes of his work: the walking man, the bust, and the standing woman.
Wassily Kandinsky, Bild mit weissen Linien (Painting with White Lines). Estimate on request. From Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, London, 21 June.
Produced in 1913, Bild mit weissen Linien represents an important period in Kandinsky's career during which he perfected his own lyrical form of abstraction. During this period, Kandinsky took his cue from the language of musical composition – and determined that every colour corresponded with a particular emotion or 'sound'.
Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale. Estimate £250,000–350,000. From Actual Size: A Curated Evening Sale, London, 21 June.
Veiled in a shimmering, golden glittered surface Concetto Spaziale is a combination of the most important motifs of Fontana’s career – the egg, the sun, the puncture.
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Man of Sorrows. Estimate: £2,000,000–3,000,000. From Old Masters Evening sale, London, 5 July.
Murillo’s greatest achievement lies in his ability to portray individuals as convincing human beings and to express their emotional state. In this exceptional late work, heralded by modern scholars as the best example of the composition, Murillo creates a powerful image of great psychological and painterly subtlety. With this composition the Sevillian master pays homage to Titian, while at the same time producing an invention that is profoundly original.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Portrait of a Lady as Flora. Estimate: £2,000,000–3,000,000. From Old Masters Evening sale, London, 5 July.
Painted during the artist’s last years in Venice in the late 1750s, this canvas was very probably among a series of ‘half-length figures of women done a capriccio’ recorded in a letter of 1760 as painted for the Empress Elizabeth of Russia. Completely unknown and unrecorded before its reappearance in 2008, the present canvas is without doubt the most beautiful and important Tiepolo discovery of recent years. The remarkable pristine condition of this canvas with all of its original brushwork and impasto intact, is here revealed for the first time following its recent restoration.
Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto , The Coronation of the Doge on the Scala Dei Giganti. Estimate: £2,500,000–3,500,000. From Old Master & British Works on Paper, London, 5 July.
A masterpiece of brilliant technique and witty observation, this perfectly preserved drawing is one of the grandest that Canaletto ever made. Originally part of a famous series of ten magnificent images of Venetian festivals, it was drawn in the 1760s and purchased not long afterwards by an English nobleman on the Grand Tour. Since then, it has only ever been offered once at auction – and even then it was bought back by another proud member of the same family.
Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Wedding Feast. Estimate: £1,000,000–1,500,000. From Old Masters Evening sale, London, 5 July.
Not only one of the most iconic images from the world of Brueghel, this is also one of the best-known images of a banquet scene in Western art. This is one of a small number of versions by Pieter Brueghel the younger after his father’s famous painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Annibale Carracci, Portrait of a Bearded Old Man. Estimate: £600,000–800,000. From Old Masters Evening sale, London, 5 July.
Technically extraordinary for its time with an unparalleled immediacy, this remarkable oil sketch on paper is a masterpiece of late 16th Century realism. Annibale Carracci pioneered this direct approach to his subjects, something that still resonates to this day, and his revolutionary use of oil sketches such as this was central to his innovative creative processes.
Bernardo Bellotto, Venice, Piazza San Marco Looking East Towards the Basilica. Estimate: £2,500,000–3,500,000. From Old Masters Evening sale, London, 5 July.
Impeccably preserved, this imposing view of St Mark’s Square in Venice is by one of the rarest of all the great painters of Venetian vedute, Bernardo Bellotto. The artist trained in the studio of his uncle, Canaletto, and by the age of 16 was producing works of such quality that they were indistinguishable from, and indeed often sold as, the work of his celebrated uncle. As is the case for most of Bellotto's early paintings, the design closely follows a work by Canaletto formerly in the Bisgood collection.
Kandinsky’s major early work Landschaft mit Grunem haus, Joan Miró's Femme et oiseaux and masterpieces from Tiepolo and Murillo are just some of the highlights from the upcoming major London summer sales that will be on exhibition at Sotheby’s in New York from 3–9 June (full details below). These Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale and Old Masters Sale standout works are joined by highlights from Actual Size: A Curated Evening that includes several works from Picasso. Click ahead to see more highlights.
Old Masters Evening Sale Highlights exhibition, New York, 3–8 June
London Impressionist & Modern Art Sales Highlights exhibition, New York, 6–9 June
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
21 June 2017 | London
Actual Size: A Curated Evening Sale
21 June 2017 | London
Old Masters Evening Sale
5 July 2017 | London
Old Master & British Works on Paper
5 July 2017 | London