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William Bouguereau
Young Girl Holding Flowers |
FTER A SHORT SLUMP AFTER September 11th, when many items failed to sell in New York and London, the market for 19th century Academic and Naturalist painting came surging back. A Boldini portrait sold for over $1,400,000 at Sotheby's April 24th, and two out of three minor Bouguereaus sailed past their estimates, selling solidly for $270,000 and $510,000 respectively at Christie's the day before. Young Girl Holding Flowers was half painted by his student, which had worried those running the sale, who had attributed the work to both Doyen and Bouguereau. But it didn't phase collectors, who bidded the work well beyond the $300,000 to $400,000 estimate. We are all waiting to see what a major Bouguereau will bring in the sales room, considering that even his minor works continue to climb in value.
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Courtship | |
In general, Sotheby's had the better selection this season, and under the sharp eye and deft management of Senior Vice President for European Paintings, Bejamin Dollar, yielded much stronger results. Other notable items were a Julien Dupré oil of two women pitching hay onto a wagon
(21" x 29") for $185,000; a small painting of a Roman courtship by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (22" x 10") that sold for more than twice the high estimate at $217,000; and a great masterpiece of French Naturalism by Jean Eugene Buland, called Le Tripot or The Gambling Den (25" x 43"), of people gambling, sold for $350,000, also more than double it's high presale esitmate of $100,000 to $150,000. The ennui of the five participants, all with looks of boredom and alienation, while three others look on as smoke fills this seeming den of iniquity, created a powerful and compelling image that one visitor said reminded her of an existentialist Last Supper. This was a work that every musem in the country should have been vying for. And while the price was a world record for Buland, it was shamefully inexpensive when one thinks of the tens of millions that are spent for mediocre examples of Impressionist paintings, or any of the icons of Modernism.
Our website designer, Iian Neill, was so enthralled by this work that he wrote: "This painting is so rich in character that I could stare at it all day. Each participant seems to have a story; the air of expectation and quiet desperation suggest that the stakes are much higher than the chips laid on the table. They seem to be playing for their souls. I fail to see why this hasn't become one of the iconic images of the nineteenth century. It's as modern as Baudelaire and as exquisitely painted as Velasquez."
Two notable disappointments were the failure to sell a fine Tissot watercolor of a Victorian crowd waving goodbye to a ship, and a Charles Burton Barber painting of a young girl being besieged by family pets.
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Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of a Man
Jean Eugene Buland
Le Tripot
Jean Eugene Buland
Le Tripot (detail)
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