1888
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Top 10 Painting The Woman Nude Self portrait II Art on paper France Van Gogh Cézanne Gauguin Renoir Seurat and Signac Vétheuil to Giverny Landscape Midi Tabletop
See also : Top 10 Painting The Woman Nude Self portrait II Art on paper France Van Gogh Cézanne Gauguin Renoir Seurat and Signac Vétheuil to Giverny Landscape Midi Tabletop
1888 Les Poseuses by Seurat
2022 SOLD for $ 150M by Christie's
Georges Seurat managed his career as a continuous series of breakthroughs. A few large scale masterpieces preceded by many studies in paintings and drawings were viewed by him as a fight against the establishment. He dubbed them his "toiles de lutte".
His first masterpiece is Une baignade à Asnières, oil on canvas 200 x 300 cm, exhibited in 1884 at the first Salon des Indépendants. The 24 year old artist revealed his indirect approach of color inspired by the theories of vision forwarded by Chevreul. The colors of Une baignade reach a softness by other methods than the impressionniste brushstroke or the pastel. The new art is named post-impressionnisme by Fénéon in 1886.
The second masterpiece, Un dimanche d'été à l'île de la Grande Jatte, of similar size, is exhibited in 1886 at the eight and final Exposition des Impressionnistes where it generates a discord between the historical impressionists supported by Degas and the post impressionists supported by Pissarro. Impressionnisme as a group was dead.
La Grande Jatte reuses the pointillism but in dull colors. Seurat had preferred composing a complex anti-bourgeois narration including humor and symbols. The work was too advanced when Seurat influenced by Signac appreciated that its cold colors were a mistake.
Galvanized by this legitimate misunderstanding of the public, Seurat started a new project in bright pointillist colors, Les Poseuses. This time the anti-bourgeois mood is replaced by subtle references to art history including himself.
The scene is staged in Seurat's studio. The left wall is covered by a truncated and slightly modified version of La Grande Jatte. The three drawings hanging on the back wall are a reference to Seurat's painstaking creative process.
Les poseuses are three positions of a model in full nudity, reminding the Three Graces. The standing figure in the center is a Venus pudica. The two side figures are seated, one from the back like Ingres's Grande baigneuse while the other in profile removes a stocking in the attitude of the Spinario.
The 200 x 250 cm canvas was exhibited in spring 1888 at the Salon des Indépendants. This painting also broke a taboo by revealing that women in painting were indeed staged by professional models.
Les Poseuses, Ensemble (petite version) was painted in 1888, arguably as a replica. Its small size, 39 x 50 cm, enabled larger dots for a vibrant color rendering. Being beside Cézanne's Montagne Sainte-Victoire a cornerstone of the Paul G. Allen collection, this oil on canvas was sold for $ 150M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 8. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, had been appealed by pointillism as a precursor to digital imagery.
His first masterpiece is Une baignade à Asnières, oil on canvas 200 x 300 cm, exhibited in 1884 at the first Salon des Indépendants. The 24 year old artist revealed his indirect approach of color inspired by the theories of vision forwarded by Chevreul. The colors of Une baignade reach a softness by other methods than the impressionniste brushstroke or the pastel. The new art is named post-impressionnisme by Fénéon in 1886.
The second masterpiece, Un dimanche d'été à l'île de la Grande Jatte, of similar size, is exhibited in 1886 at the eight and final Exposition des Impressionnistes where it generates a discord between the historical impressionists supported by Degas and the post impressionists supported by Pissarro. Impressionnisme as a group was dead.
La Grande Jatte reuses the pointillism but in dull colors. Seurat had preferred composing a complex anti-bourgeois narration including humor and symbols. The work was too advanced when Seurat influenced by Signac appreciated that its cold colors were a mistake.
Galvanized by this legitimate misunderstanding of the public, Seurat started a new project in bright pointillist colors, Les Poseuses. This time the anti-bourgeois mood is replaced by subtle references to art history including himself.
The scene is staged in Seurat's studio. The left wall is covered by a truncated and slightly modified version of La Grande Jatte. The three drawings hanging on the back wall are a reference to Seurat's painstaking creative process.
Les poseuses are three positions of a model in full nudity, reminding the Three Graces. The standing figure in the center is a Venus pudica. The two side figures are seated, one from the back like Ingres's Grande baigneuse while the other in profile removes a stocking in the attitude of the Spinario.
The 200 x 250 cm canvas was exhibited in spring 1888 at the Salon des Indépendants. This painting also broke a taboo by revealing that women in painting were indeed staged by professional models.
Les Poseuses, Ensemble (petite version) was painted in 1888, arguably as a replica. Its small size, 39 x 50 cm, enabled larger dots for a vibrant color rendering. Being beside Cézanne's Montagne Sainte-Victoire a cornerstone of the Paul G. Allen collection, this oil on canvas was sold for $ 150M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 8. Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, had been appealed by pointillism as a precursor to digital imagery.
#AuctionRecord From the Paul G. Allen Collection ‘Les poseuses, ensemble (Petite version)’ by Georges Seurat set an auction record for the artist with a price realized of $149.24 million, almost 5x the artist’s previous record pic.twitter.com/pnAWYnfoAh
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) November 10, 2022
CEZANNE
1
1888-1890 Montagne Sainte-Victoire
2022 SOLD for $ 138M by Christie's
Paul Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence. In the early 1880s he shares his time between Pontoise and Provence. In 1886 his father dies. Paul may now marry his long time mistress Hortense and moves to Gardanne with his family.
The view on the Montagne Sainte-Victoire is magnificent from his new home. The mountain is standing out alone in a nearly symmetrical shape on the horizon. Desiring now to develop his art conceptions in seclusion, Paul takes it as a regular theme, sometimes framed by a large pine in the foreground.
New pictorial experiments are beginning. Cézanne manages to give up the optical truth of the Impressionnistes. The landscape becomes an orderly construction of geometrical shapes, providing the emotional sensation of another reality.
An oil on canvas 65 x 80 cm painted in 1888 or slightly later displays the dominating Montagne is all its purity, surrounded by the countryside without its real foreground of olive trees, roads and houses.
The flattened geometric mountain is colored in a range of soft blues, lilacs and white in an unprecedented balance of myriads of brush strokes. The underlined horizon are resolutely geometrical. Indeed impressionism and photography could not display such a powerful effect.
This painting was sold for $ 38.5M by Phillips, de Pury and Luxembourg on May 7, 2001, lot 5, and for $ 138M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 14. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The reality of the canceled foreground disturbed the artist. From 1902 his workshop at Les Lauves provides every morning to the aging artist the global view of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire as he had dreamed it in the 1880s, nevertheless with a loss in the symmetry of the peak..
The view on the Montagne Sainte-Victoire is magnificent from his new home. The mountain is standing out alone in a nearly symmetrical shape on the horizon. Desiring now to develop his art conceptions in seclusion, Paul takes it as a regular theme, sometimes framed by a large pine in the foreground.
New pictorial experiments are beginning. Cézanne manages to give up the optical truth of the Impressionnistes. The landscape becomes an orderly construction of geometrical shapes, providing the emotional sensation of another reality.
An oil on canvas 65 x 80 cm painted in 1888 or slightly later displays the dominating Montagne is all its purity, surrounded by the countryside without its real foreground of olive trees, roads and houses.
The flattened geometric mountain is colored in a range of soft blues, lilacs and white in an unprecedented balance of myriads of brush strokes. The underlined horizon are resolutely geometrical. Indeed impressionism and photography could not display such a powerful effect.
This painting was sold for $ 38.5M by Phillips, de Pury and Luxembourg on May 7, 2001, lot 5, and for $ 138M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 14. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The reality of the canceled foreground disturbed the artist. From 1902 his workshop at Les Lauves provides every morning to the aging artist the global view of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire as he had dreamed it in the 1880s, nevertheless with a loss in the symmetry of the peak..
2
1888-1890 Bouilloire et fruits
2019 SOLD for $ 59M by Christie's
For Cézanne the work of art is a challenge. The theme is of minor importance since nature can be evoked but is never copied. From the mid-1880s he studies the still life of fruit on a table as a support for his theories of shapes, colors, harmony and even movement.
A still life from that phase was sold for £ 21M by Christie's in 2019. The composition seems naively simple until we perceive the imbalance of the plate. The observer awaits the tilting that will roll the fruit onto the table.
The artist will then increase the complexity. Bouilloire et fruits, oil on canvas 49 x 60 cm painted between 1888 and 1890, offers the dynamic contrast between a heavy pot steadily placed on the table and the fruits in a precarious balance in the folds of the tablecloth.
Cézanne reworked each painting tirelessly, seeking a perfection that existed only in his own imagination. Sometimes he stops before it is finished. The handle and the body of the kettle are disjointed. A lemon or an apple that did not suit the artist left some traces without disappearing completely.
It does not matter: the variety of forms and the mingling of the colors that constitute the textures are already satisfactory. Cézanne accepts to sell this unfinished work to a collector.
Bouilloire et fruits was sold for £ 18M by Sotheby's on December 7, 1999 and for $ 59M by Christie's on May 13, 2019, lot 18A. Please watch the very short video shared by the auction house.
Painted in 1893 with a similar inspiration, Rideau, cruchon et compotier, oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm, was sold for $ 60M by Sotheby's in 1999. The fruit bowl is not placed on the table.
A still life from that phase was sold for £ 21M by Christie's in 2019. The composition seems naively simple until we perceive the imbalance of the plate. The observer awaits the tilting that will roll the fruit onto the table.
The artist will then increase the complexity. Bouilloire et fruits, oil on canvas 49 x 60 cm painted between 1888 and 1890, offers the dynamic contrast between a heavy pot steadily placed on the table and the fruits in a precarious balance in the folds of the tablecloth.
Cézanne reworked each painting tirelessly, seeking a perfection that existed only in his own imagination. Sometimes he stops before it is finished. The handle and the body of the kettle are disjointed. A lemon or an apple that did not suit the artist left some traces without disappearing completely.
It does not matter: the variety of forms and the mingling of the colors that constitute the textures are already satisfactory. Cézanne accepts to sell this unfinished work to a collector.
Bouilloire et fruits was sold for £ 18M by Sotheby's on December 7, 1999 and for $ 59M by Christie's on May 13, 2019, lot 18A. Please watch the very short video shared by the auction house.
Painted in 1893 with a similar inspiration, Rideau, cruchon et compotier, oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm, was sold for $ 60M by Sotheby's in 1999. The fruit bowl is not placed on the table.
Also from The Collection of S.I Newhouse, Cézanne's 'Bouilloire et fruits' realizes $59,295,000 at auction https://t.co/0XESM9gIJx pic.twitter.com/JX9L5TU85u
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) May 13, 2019
VAN GOGH
1
April 1888 Verger
2022 SOLD for $ 117M by Christie's
Vincent van Gogh moves to Arles in February 1888. He knows what he wants : the perfect harmony of a landscape that will allow him to enter into communion with the land. He immediately starts working. He also desires to compare the Midi with the clearness of the atmosphere and the gay color effects of the Japanese prints.
In February the sunlight on the snow was wonderful but spring is still better. Nature awakens. All over the area in the orchards, pink and white blossoms dazzle under the Provençal sun. Desiring to express a tremendous gaiety, Vincent is very prolific with 14 paintings in five weeks from March 25 of the peach, apricot, plum, pear, cherry and almond trees, in a fury to process that wonderful theme before the spring colors are over.
The trees are single or in groups, with no human presence. His brush is in full freedom with no preconceived process from impasto to uncovered canvas.
On November 9, 2022, Christie's sold for $ 117M a Verger of pink peach trees, lot 22. This oil on canvas painted in April 1888 was consigned to his brother Theo in the next month in his first supply from Arles. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The composition of this panoramic format 65 x 80 cm is very harmonious, with the dark horizon of cypress trees that does not overlap the delicate tones of the orchard. The dotted sky mingles with the blooming branches, arguably inspired from the brushstroke of Seurat whom Vincent had visited in February just before leaving Paris.
On May 1, 1888, Vincent rents some rooms in the Maison Jaune in order to install his studio and share his enthusiasm with other artists.
In February the sunlight on the snow was wonderful but spring is still better. Nature awakens. All over the area in the orchards, pink and white blossoms dazzle under the Provençal sun. Desiring to express a tremendous gaiety, Vincent is very prolific with 14 paintings in five weeks from March 25 of the peach, apricot, plum, pear, cherry and almond trees, in a fury to process that wonderful theme before the spring colors are over.
The trees are single or in groups, with no human presence. His brush is in full freedom with no preconceived process from impasto to uncovered canvas.
On November 9, 2022, Christie's sold for $ 117M a Verger of pink peach trees, lot 22. This oil on canvas painted in April 1888 was consigned to his brother Theo in the next month in his first supply from Arles. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The composition of this panoramic format 65 x 80 cm is very harmonious, with the dark horizon of cypress trees that does not overlap the delicate tones of the orchard. The dotted sky mingles with the blooming branches, arguably inspired from the brushstroke of Seurat whom Vincent had visited in February just before leaving Paris.
On May 1, 1888, Vincent rents some rooms in the Maison Jaune in order to install his studio and share his enthusiasm with other artists.
2
June 1888 Le Pont de Trinquetaille
2021 SOLD for $ 37.4M by Christie's
1888 is the wonderful year in the life of van Gogh. He finds in Arles what he had been looking for, the extreme light of the four seasons in Provence, favorable to his new research on color inspired by Japonism. He walks around the area to better see hills and orchards.
At the beginning of June, Vincent goes by stagecoach to Les Saintes-Maries de la Mer for a five-day stay. On June 17, he paints an animated view of the banks of the Rhône with the iron bridge of Trinquetaille which links the Camargue to the city.
The unlimited embankment on the left side of the painting may remind some views by Monet in Argenteuil but is most probably inspired by the Japanese style. The sky and the reflections in the water are greenish-yellow, the color of absinthe according to the artist's avowal. The quiet attitude of the anonymous figures are in the follow of his Montmartre views from the previous year.
This oil on canvas 65 x 81 cm oil was sold three times by Christie's : for $ 15.4M on November 8, 1999, for $ 11.2M on November 3, 2004, lot 41., and for $ 37.4M on May 13, 2021, lot 29 B. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
At the beginning of June, Vincent goes by stagecoach to Les Saintes-Maries de la Mer for a five-day stay. On June 17, he paints an animated view of the banks of the Rhône with the iron bridge of Trinquetaille which links the Camargue to the city.
The unlimited embankment on the left side of the painting may remind some views by Monet in Argenteuil but is most probably inspired by the Japanese style. The sky and the reflections in the water are greenish-yellow, the color of absinthe according to the artist's avowal. The quiet attitude of the anonymous figures are in the follow of his Montmartre views from the previous year.
This oil on canvas 65 x 81 cm oil was sold three times by Christie's : for $ 15.4M on November 8, 1999, for $ 11.2M on November 3, 2004, lot 41., and for $ 37.4M on May 13, 2021, lot 29 B. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
3
June 1888 Meules de Blé
2021 SOLD for $ 36M by Christie's
Vincent started a new, healthier, life when he moved to Arles in February 1888. The nature of Provence is an open unlimited studio for him. He is nevertheless slowed in his enthusiasm by the issues in Theo's job that reduce the supplies of painting materials. Vincent then uses sparely the oil on canvas and brings an increased care to drawing.
Vincent was born in rural Brabant to a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. The wheat fields and their laborers have for him a mystic meaning related to life through the cycle of the seasons.
In June 1888 both influences gather. Vincent discovers the wonderful colors of the wheat fields and stacks at harvest time under the midday sun of Provence. This vision reinforces his pictorial frenzy. He cannot any more be limited to a black pencil.
Canvas is not the good choice for working in the open fields under a frequent mistral wind. His images are created in pencil on paper before being colored with pen and brush in gouache, watercolor and black ink. Back in his studio, he reuses his compositions in oil on canvas. The flattened perspectives and colors are influenced by the Japanese prints.
On November 11, 2021, Christie's sold for $ 36M from a lower estimate of $ 20M one of these painted studies, lot 8C. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
This 48 x 60 cm work on paper is centered with an overwhelming flamboyant wheat stack that minimizes the laborers in the farmyard. Far away in the horizon, the farmhouses and the railroad bridge on the Rhône define the location.
Vincent immediately prepared the 73 x 92 cm final oil version of this specific composition. He sent its preparatory study in mid June to Theo as a demonstrator of that new opus. He was happy with this composition and later made pen copies for Emile Bernard and John Russell.
Van Gogh's Provençal Meules anticipate the 1889-1890 series of Meules by Monet in Normandy.
Vincent was born in rural Brabant to a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. The wheat fields and their laborers have for him a mystic meaning related to life through the cycle of the seasons.
In June 1888 both influences gather. Vincent discovers the wonderful colors of the wheat fields and stacks at harvest time under the midday sun of Provence. This vision reinforces his pictorial frenzy. He cannot any more be limited to a black pencil.
Canvas is not the good choice for working in the open fields under a frequent mistral wind. His images are created in pencil on paper before being colored with pen and brush in gouache, watercolor and black ink. Back in his studio, he reuses his compositions in oil on canvas. The flattened perspectives and colors are influenced by the Japanese prints.
On November 11, 2021, Christie's sold for $ 36M from a lower estimate of $ 20M one of these painted studies, lot 8C. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
This 48 x 60 cm work on paper is centered with an overwhelming flamboyant wheat stack that minimizes the laborers in the farmyard. Far away in the horizon, the farmhouses and the railroad bridge on the Rhône define the location.
Vincent immediately prepared the 73 x 92 cm final oil version of this specific composition. He sent its preparatory study in mid June to Theo as a demonstrator of that new opus. He was happy with this composition and later made pen copies for Emile Bernard and John Russell.
Van Gogh's Provençal Meules anticipate the 1889-1890 series of Meules by Monet in Normandy.
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4
November 1888 Les Alyscamps
2015 SOLD for $ 66M by Sotheby's
Arrived at Arles in 1888 at the end of winter, Vincent van Gogh engaged with nature in Provence, with the wonderful colors of spring from the hill of Montmajour and the hard summer sun over the works in the fields.
He moved to the maison jaune where he wanted to create a community of artists named by him L'Atelier du Midi. Paul Gauguin arrived as his first guest on 23 October.
A period of fine weather, from October 29 to November 2, allows a first outdoor session. The two artists set their easels in the Alyscamps dominated by the bright yellow of the autumn leaves.
They must come to some understanding. Two of van Gogh paintings include forms within sharp outlines that could appeal to Gauguin. Their very different conceptions of artistic creation begin however to oppose the two artists from that first trials. Gauguin is a cerebral man for whom the achievement must be consistent with the original design, van Gogh is an impulsive wishing that the spontaneous gesture contributes to the artwork.
On May 5, 2015, Sotheby's sold for $ 66M a view of the Alyscamps painted on November 1, 1888, oil on canvas 92 x 74 cm, lot 18. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. Its image is also shared by Wikimedia.
The composition is geometric, with its perspective view of the allée of trees. The contrast between the warm colors of soil and trees and the cold blue sky make this van Gogh painting resolutely away from the flat colors of Gauguin. The expression is enhanced by the rich shades of the palette. This painting contains the elements that will generate misunderstanding and estrangement between the two great artists.
He moved to the maison jaune where he wanted to create a community of artists named by him L'Atelier du Midi. Paul Gauguin arrived as his first guest on 23 October.
A period of fine weather, from October 29 to November 2, allows a first outdoor session. The two artists set their easels in the Alyscamps dominated by the bright yellow of the autumn leaves.
They must come to some understanding. Two of van Gogh paintings include forms within sharp outlines that could appeal to Gauguin. Their very different conceptions of artistic creation begin however to oppose the two artists from that first trials. Gauguin is a cerebral man for whom the achievement must be consistent with the original design, van Gogh is an impulsive wishing that the spontaneous gesture contributes to the artwork.
On May 5, 2015, Sotheby's sold for $ 66M a view of the Alyscamps painted on November 1, 1888, oil on canvas 92 x 74 cm, lot 18. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. Its image is also shared by Wikimedia.
The composition is geometric, with its perspective view of the allée of trees. The contrast between the warm colors of soil and trees and the cold blue sky make this van Gogh painting resolutely away from the flat colors of Gauguin. The expression is enhanced by the rich shades of the palette. This painting contains the elements that will generate misunderstanding and estrangement between the two great artists.
1888 Self Portrait by van Gogh
May 15, 1990 SOLD for $ 26.4M by Christie's
to be narrated later
had been in the collection of the late Robert Lehman, a major benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum.
GAUGUIN
1
masterpiece
1888 La Vision après le Sermon
Scottish National Gallery
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
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1888 La Vague by Gauguin
2018 SOLD for $ 35M by Christie's
Around 1884 the post-Impressionists are passionate about Chevreul's theories on the decomposition of light. Paul Gauguin, ever in search of an original art, does not try the pointillism but he notes that the rainbow displays the colors in an immutable sequence.
In January 1888 the artist quietly begins his second stay in Pont-Aven. He takes the time to walk on the Wild Coast and observes that the colors of the swell in heavy weather meet his theory.
On May 8, 2018, Christie's sold as lot 6 for $ 35M La Vague, oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm painted by Gauguin in 1888. A strong wave hits a group of high rocks in the open sea. Two bathers flee the tide onto the vermilion beach. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This painting, unusual and perhaps even unique in Gauguin's art, was included in the 1891 auction set up by the artist to finance his departure for Oceania. Its title in the catalog, La Vague (arc-en-ciel), seems enigmatic but provides the key for the interpretation.
There is no sky or rain in this picture. Arc-en-ciel is here the bow-shaped iridescent spectrum on the sea, passing from pale violet to yellow when the prismatic depth of the water decreases while approaching the coast. With a surprising modernism the unreal color of the beach is the ultimate extension of that spectral decomposition.
Gauguin's Vague was purchased in that auction by a collector of Japanese prints probably attracted by the similarity of theme with The Wave by Hokusai. The comparison stops here because the view taken by Gauguin from the top of the cliff has no close-up.
Despite Gauguin's admiration for Degas, the completely off-center position of the two women is secondary in this composition. Their difference of scale in the face of the grandiose nature is however not without relation to the metaphysical questions of the artist.
In January 1888 the artist quietly begins his second stay in Pont-Aven. He takes the time to walk on the Wild Coast and observes that the colors of the swell in heavy weather meet his theory.
On May 8, 2018, Christie's sold as lot 6 for $ 35M La Vague, oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm painted by Gauguin in 1888. A strong wave hits a group of high rocks in the open sea. Two bathers flee the tide onto the vermilion beach. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This painting, unusual and perhaps even unique in Gauguin's art, was included in the 1891 auction set up by the artist to finance his departure for Oceania. Its title in the catalog, La Vague (arc-en-ciel), seems enigmatic but provides the key for the interpretation.
There is no sky or rain in this picture. Arc-en-ciel is here the bow-shaped iridescent spectrum on the sea, passing from pale violet to yellow when the prismatic depth of the water decreases while approaching the coast. With a surprising modernism the unreal color of the beach is the ultimate extension of that spectral decomposition.
Gauguin's Vague was purchased in that auction by a collector of Japanese prints probably attracted by the similarity of theme with The Wave by Hokusai. The comparison stops here because the view taken by Gauguin from the top of the cliff has no close-up.
Despite Gauguin's admiration for Degas, the completely off-center position of the two women is secondary in this composition. Their difference of scale in the face of the grandiose nature is however not without relation to the metaphysical questions of the artist.
1888 Le Moulin de Limetz by Monet
2023 SOLD for $ 25.6M by Sotheby's
to be narrated
#AuctionUpdate: Following 8 minutes of bidding between 6 participants, Claude Monet’s 'Le Moulin de Limetz' achieves $25.6m in its auction debut—more than double the low estimate. #SothebysModern pic.twitter.com/nClgRb9M7q
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) November 14, 2023
1888 Baigneuse by Renoir
1997 SOLD for $ 21M by Sotheby's
Not so easy, the artist's life ! After the early period of enthusiasm, the Impressionists began to look for adapting their style to what they thought they could sell. Renoir certainly considered the commercial effectiveness of the nude figures by Bouguereau.
His Grandes Baigneuses painting is exhibited in Paris in 1887. The line is too sharp, imitating Ingres and puzzling the friends of the artist who were probably expecting a more original evolution. They were right.
The considerable work done by Renoir for this questioned painting had a fundamental impact on his art : now, the artist is passionate about the theme of the everlasting beauty, inspired from classical antiquity and from Botticelli's Nascita di Venere.
A Baigneuse, oil on canvas 65 x 55 cm painted in 1888 by Renoir, was sold for $ 21M by Sotheby's on November 13, 1997. It was withdrawn by Christie's for private sale before its scheduled auction of June 20, 2012.
The young woman is nude after a bath, quiet, gesturing toilet. No other accessory than a small towel, in an unimportant outdoor setting. She is the ideal woman, timeless.
Especially, the quality of the flesh is exceptional, velvety without being erotic. The synthesis of Impressionist experience and Ingresque ideal pushes Renoir to the level of Rubens.
His Grandes Baigneuses painting is exhibited in Paris in 1887. The line is too sharp, imitating Ingres and puzzling the friends of the artist who were probably expecting a more original evolution. They were right.
The considerable work done by Renoir for this questioned painting had a fundamental impact on his art : now, the artist is passionate about the theme of the everlasting beauty, inspired from classical antiquity and from Botticelli's Nascita di Venere.
A Baigneuse, oil on canvas 65 x 55 cm painted in 1888 by Renoir, was sold for $ 21M by Sotheby's on November 13, 1997. It was withdrawn by Christie's for private sale before its scheduled auction of June 20, 2012.
The young woman is nude after a bath, quiet, gesturing toilet. No other accessory than a small towel, in an unimportant outdoor setting. She is the ideal woman, timeless.
Especially, the quality of the flesh is exceptional, velvety without being erotic. The synthesis of Impressionist experience and Ingresque ideal pushes Renoir to the level of Rubens.
1888 Gelée Blanche by Pissarro
2020 SOLD for £ 13.3M by Sotheby's
Camille Pissarro could be considered as the ultimate guarantor of the impressionist movement. He is the only artist whose paintings have been included in all the eight exhibitions of the group. He could just as well be considered as their gravedigger : the refusal of Monet, Sisley, Renoir and Caillebotte to participate in the last event in 1886 is by protest against the support provided by Pissarro to his new friends Seurat and Signac.
Pissarro moved away from the Paris region in 1884 to settle in Eragny-sur-Epte, near Gisors and not far from Giverny. He observes an authentic peasant life in a pleasant rural landscape. In that place, to better capture the quiet atmosphere of the countryside, he begins using divisionist techniques. Seurat is very proud of this apostasy from impressionism by one of its most famous exponents.
Divisionism, or pointillism, is a painstaking process which is hardly compatible with Pissarro's desire for spontaneity and humanism. At the time of Seurat's untimely death in 1891, he states that this technique is no longer suiting him. The hatched knife painting of Pissarro's pointillist works paves however the way for the precise and meticulous touch of the rest of his career.
Signac had managed to convince Seurat that pointillism was taking all its advantage when expressing an intense light. This remark is superbly applied by Pissarro in his painting Gelée blanche subtitled Jeune paysanne faisant du feu, oil on canvas 93 x 93 cm conceived in spring 1887 and completed in July 1888.
On a sunny winter morning, a peasant girl helped by a young boy feeds a big wood fire in a meadow. She is bent under the wind which pushes her skirt, imitating the position of the woman in Millet's Angelus like a snub from the anarchist to the religious scene of his predecessor. The warm clothes of the boy confirm a very cold weather.
The technical feat in this work is the extreme luminosity of the smoke, made up of a crossed pattern of blue hatching gradually interspersed with large white lines in a contrasting effect which provides a three-dimensional illusion.
This brilliant painting is perhaps a unique tour de force within the short pointillist period of Pissarro. It was seized in 1940 in Paris from a Jewish collector. Restituted in 2018 to his heirs after having been entrusted for eighteen years to the Musée d'Orsay, it was sold for £ 13.3M from a lower estimate of £ 8M by Sotheby's on February 4, 2020, lot 11.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house, including a painting by Signac with the same provenance.
Pissarro moved away from the Paris region in 1884 to settle in Eragny-sur-Epte, near Gisors and not far from Giverny. He observes an authentic peasant life in a pleasant rural landscape. In that place, to better capture the quiet atmosphere of the countryside, he begins using divisionist techniques. Seurat is very proud of this apostasy from impressionism by one of its most famous exponents.
Divisionism, or pointillism, is a painstaking process which is hardly compatible with Pissarro's desire for spontaneity and humanism. At the time of Seurat's untimely death in 1891, he states that this technique is no longer suiting him. The hatched knife painting of Pissarro's pointillist works paves however the way for the precise and meticulous touch of the rest of his career.
Signac had managed to convince Seurat that pointillism was taking all its advantage when expressing an intense light. This remark is superbly applied by Pissarro in his painting Gelée blanche subtitled Jeune paysanne faisant du feu, oil on canvas 93 x 93 cm conceived in spring 1887 and completed in July 1888.
On a sunny winter morning, a peasant girl helped by a young boy feeds a big wood fire in a meadow. She is bent under the wind which pushes her skirt, imitating the position of the woman in Millet's Angelus like a snub from the anarchist to the religious scene of his predecessor. The warm clothes of the boy confirm a very cold weather.
The technical feat in this work is the extreme luminosity of the smoke, made up of a crossed pattern of blue hatching gradually interspersed with large white lines in a contrasting effect which provides a three-dimensional illusion.
This brilliant painting is perhaps a unique tour de force within the short pointillist period of Pissarro. It was seized in 1940 in Paris from a Jewish collector. Restituted in 2018 to his heirs after having been entrusted for eighteen years to the Musée d'Orsay, it was sold for £ 13.3M from a lower estimate of £ 8M by Sotheby's on February 4, 2020, lot 11.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house, including a painting by Signac with the same provenance.
Three Impressionist masterpieces stolen by the Nazis are heading to auction: https://t.co/ZAUbpnbn4C pic.twitter.com/XiWLOK0Tef
— Artnet (@artnet) January 13, 2020
