1912
masterpiece
1345 BCE - 1912 Nefertiti Bust
Neues Museum Berlin
Discovered in 1912.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
masterpiece
1912 Avec l'Arc Noir by Kandinsky
Centre Pompidou
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
masterpiece
1912 Nu descendant un escalier by Duchamp
Philadelphia Museum of Art
In 1912, the limelights of art were accessible to young artists. Aged 25 years only, Marcel Duchamp disrupts not only all the traditions but also the avant-gardes.
Early that year, he made his first major breakthrough, brilliantly, with the Nu Descendant un Escalier. It went fully against the Cubism, that was looking for volume. For Duchamp, the fourth dimension is movement. His character is shown several times on this painting. His human body shape is imprecise, but the different positions attest to the human attitude in motion.
Nobody had such thoughts before him. This work relies on the photographic analysis of movement by Muybridge and Marey, but transparency and blur of the body comes from the X-ray pictures, known for less than twenty years.
Also Duchamp intends to scandal, or at least to do the opposite of all his contemporaries. It is encouraging him to prepare immediately his next work, Roi et Reine traversés par des Nus en Vitesse. Here, several characters are each shown only once, but they intermingle in the positions which, according to the artist, are suggesting the movement.
Early that year, he made his first major breakthrough, brilliantly, with the Nu Descendant un Escalier. It went fully against the Cubism, that was looking for volume. For Duchamp, the fourth dimension is movement. His character is shown several times on this painting. His human body shape is imprecise, but the different positions attest to the human attitude in motion.
Nobody had such thoughts before him. This work relies on the photographic analysis of movement by Muybridge and Marey, but transparency and blur of the body comes from the X-ray pictures, known for less than twenty years.
Also Duchamp intends to scandal, or at least to do the opposite of all his contemporaries. It is encouraging him to prepare immediately his next work, Roi et Reine traversés par des Nus en Vitesse. Here, several characters are each shown only once, but they intermingle in the positions which, according to the artist, are suggesting the movement.
1912 Adele Bloch-Bauer II by Klimt
2006 SOLD for 88 M$ including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2020
In 1899 Adele Bauer, 18, marries Ferdinand Bloch, 35. Ferdinand is a wealthy sugar industrialist. Well introduced in the Viennese society, Adele likes to bring together writers, politicians and intellectuals in her salon.
At this time Gustav Klimt is introducing an unprecedented luxury into modern painting. Inspired by the mosaic of Empress Theodora in the Basilica of Ravenna, he offers a new vision of the ideal woman, sumptuously dressed in a patchwork of gold, silver and sometimes platinum leaves.
Adele serves as a model in 1901 for Judith, which is a pinnacle of eroticism in Klimt's art. The husband is not jealous. In 1903 he begins to buy paintings from Klimt and commissions a portrait of his wife. Klimt works for four years on this project. In his sublime style, the figuration does not reveal any nudity and the Bloch-Bauers can hang this painting 138 x 138 cm in their living room.
These tripartite relations remain excellent. Adele will be the only woman of whom Klimt has painted two portraits. The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which joins the previous opus in 1912 in the Bloch-Bauer living room, is an oil on canvas 190 x 120 cm. The standing Adele is dressed in gray and white in front of a richly colored background. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The Bloch-Bauer collection, also including three landscapes by Klimt, was plundered by the Nazis after the Anschluss. It was returned after a long trial in 2004 to the legitimate heiress, who dispersed it with the help of Christie's.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was sold in private sale to Ronald Lauder in June 2006 for $ 135M, the highest price known for a painting at that time. The other four works were sold separately at auction by Christie's on November 8, 2006.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was sold for $ 88M including premium over a lower estimate of $ 40M. The mediatization has certainly influenced such a high price. The lot escaped Lauder. It will be known later that it had been bought by Oprah Winfrey. It reached a new peak in 2016 when Oprah sold it in a private sale for $ 150M to a Chinese collector.
The three landscapes were sold respectively for $ 40M, $ 33M and $ 31.4M including premium over lower estimates of $ 20M, $ 15M and $ 18M.
At this time Gustav Klimt is introducing an unprecedented luxury into modern painting. Inspired by the mosaic of Empress Theodora in the Basilica of Ravenna, he offers a new vision of the ideal woman, sumptuously dressed in a patchwork of gold, silver and sometimes platinum leaves.
Adele serves as a model in 1901 for Judith, which is a pinnacle of eroticism in Klimt's art. The husband is not jealous. In 1903 he begins to buy paintings from Klimt and commissions a portrait of his wife. Klimt works for four years on this project. In his sublime style, the figuration does not reveal any nudity and the Bloch-Bauers can hang this painting 138 x 138 cm in their living room.
These tripartite relations remain excellent. Adele will be the only woman of whom Klimt has painted two portraits. The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which joins the previous opus in 1912 in the Bloch-Bauer living room, is an oil on canvas 190 x 120 cm. The standing Adele is dressed in gray and white in front of a richly colored background. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The Bloch-Bauer collection, also including three landscapes by Klimt, was plundered by the Nazis after the Anschluss. It was returned after a long trial in 2004 to the legitimate heiress, who dispersed it with the help of Christie's.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was sold in private sale to Ronald Lauder in June 2006 for $ 135M, the highest price known for a painting at that time. The other four works were sold separately at auction by Christie's on November 8, 2006.
The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was sold for $ 88M including premium over a lower estimate of $ 40M. The mediatization has certainly influenced such a high price. The lot escaped Lauder. It will be known later that it had been bought by Oprah Winfrey. It reached a new peak in 2016 when Oprah sold it in a private sale for $ 150M to a Chinese collector.
The three landscapes were sold respectively for $ 40M, $ 33M and $ 31.4M including premium over lower estimates of $ 20M, $ 15M and $ 18M.
1912 Apfelbaum by Klimt
2006 SOLD for $ 33M including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2020
With Gustav Klimt, ornamentation becomes a major art. Through his connivance with his companion the milliner Emilie Flöge, he invents new patterns that can be applied to the shimmering garments of the ladies.
He spends his summers in Litzlberg on the Attersee. Far from the professional obligations of Vienna, he is temporarily released from portraits, allegories and even eroticism. He seeks the truth of nature in the elementary forms of landscape and garden. His canvases are square to cancel out the overall vision and the distance. His most frequent format, 110 x 110 cm, is used outdoors in front of the subject, just like the canvases around 80 x 100 cm painted by Monet in front of his pond.
Klimt is influenced by Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionists. Shades of greenery are interwoven in energetic brushstrokes. The colorful spots of the flowers provide rhythm and anchor points. Realism is in the details and not in the reconstruction.
One of the earliest examples, kept at the Musée d'Orsay, is a Rosen unter Bäumen painted in 1904 or 1905, with a tiny horizon in the right corner that helps to perceive the outward shape of the trees. A view of flowers in various sizes and colors painted in 1907 was sold for £ 48M including premium by Sotheby's on March 1, 2017.
On November 8, 2006, Christie's sold at lot 53 for $ 33M including premium Apfelbaum, oil on canvas 110 x 110 cm painted in 1912 which came from the Bloch-Bauer restitution. The image is shared by Wikimedia. The color contrasts are provided by the red apples inserted into the foliage and by a narrow flowerbed at the bottom of the picture.
He spends his summers in Litzlberg on the Attersee. Far from the professional obligations of Vienna, he is temporarily released from portraits, allegories and even eroticism. He seeks the truth of nature in the elementary forms of landscape and garden. His canvases are square to cancel out the overall vision and the distance. His most frequent format, 110 x 110 cm, is used outdoors in front of the subject, just like the canvases around 80 x 100 cm painted by Monet in front of his pond.
Klimt is influenced by Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionists. Shades of greenery are interwoven in energetic brushstrokes. The colorful spots of the flowers provide rhythm and anchor points. Realism is in the details and not in the reconstruction.
One of the earliest examples, kept at the Musée d'Orsay, is a Rosen unter Bäumen painted in 1904 or 1905, with a tiny horizon in the right corner that helps to perceive the outward shape of the trees. A view of flowers in various sizes and colors painted in 1907 was sold for £ 48M including premium by Sotheby's on March 1, 2017.
On November 8, 2006, Christie's sold at lot 53 for $ 33M including premium Apfelbaum, oil on canvas 110 x 110 cm painted in 1912 which came from the Bloch-Bauer restitution. The image is shared by Wikimedia. The color contrasts are provided by the red apples inserted into the foliage and by a narrow flowerbed at the bottom of the picture.
1912 Der Wasserfall by Franz Marc
2007 SOLD for $ 20.2M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020
The quest for a new art, mystical and dematerialized, brings together Kandinsky and Marc. Franz Marc loves the masculine strength of the wild horses. Kandinsky likes the theme of the rider. Blue is their favorite color. With among others Macke and Jawlensky, they create the Der Blaue Reiter movement in Munich in 1911. That name was also the title of a previous painting by Kandinsky.
Like Kandinsky, Marc gradually evolves towards an abstraction characterized by the raw expression of colors. His colors, symbols of the pantheistic forces, completely escape the realism. He explained how to interpret them : Blue is the male principle, austere, spiritual and intellectual. Yellow is the female principle, nice, kind and sensual. Red is an enemy, materialistic, brutal and heavy.
In support to his theories, Marc stages a wide variety of animals, ideal creations of nature. However, he does not forget that his goal is humanistic.
On November 7, 2007, Sotheby's sold for $ 20.2M including premium Der Wasserfall, oil on canvas 165 x 158 cm painted in 1912, lot 41.
Der Wasserfall is a rare example from that period with human characters. In front of the waterfall, four naked women display dramatic gestures. The colors of the skins are different, expressing without a racial connotation the diversity of temperaments. The waterfall is an abundant and swirling flow in a striking blue, symbolizing the divine light. In the background on the left, a feline brings its contribution to the pantheism.
Like Kandinsky, Marc gradually evolves towards an abstraction characterized by the raw expression of colors. His colors, symbols of the pantheistic forces, completely escape the realism. He explained how to interpret them : Blue is the male principle, austere, spiritual and intellectual. Yellow is the female principle, nice, kind and sensual. Red is an enemy, materialistic, brutal and heavy.
In support to his theories, Marc stages a wide variety of animals, ideal creations of nature. However, he does not forget that his goal is humanistic.
On November 7, 2007, Sotheby's sold for $ 20.2M including premium Der Wasserfall, oil on canvas 165 x 158 cm painted in 1912, lot 41.
Der Wasserfall is a rare example from that period with human characters. In front of the waterfall, four naked women display dramatic gestures. The colors of the skins are different, expressing without a racial connotation the diversity of temperaments. The waterfall is an abundant and swirling flow in a striking blue, symbolizing the divine light. In the background on the left, a feline brings its contribution to the pantheism.
1912 Horses by Franz Marc
2018 SOLD for £ 15.4M including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2020
Franz Marc rejects the modern life which is dominated by the machine. He seeks truth in Nature. His work displays a great diversity of animals, whose symbiosis with nature is a support for a harmony of forms. He uses Fauvist colors, with a symbolist code of his invention : blue for the male and yellow for the female when they are peaceful, and red to express an antithesis, for example revolt.
The horse occupies the best place in Marc's art. The natural attitude of this animal is varied but always elegant. A group of horses is the pretext for building a perfect balance. With an image brought by Kandinsky, the horse becomes a powerful symbol of modern art when the two artists create the Der Blaue Reiter movement in 1911.
Grosse Landschaft I (large landscape I) shows a group of mares. This oil on canvas 110 x 212 cm painted in 1909 passed at Sotheby's on February 3, 2016 with a lower estimate of £ 4M, lot 6.
Weidende Pferde III (grazing horses III) stages four fiery males, each one in another attitude. The coats are red but manes and tails are blue. This oil on canvas 61 x 92 cm painted in 1910 was sold for £ 12.3M including premium by Sotheby's on February 5, 2008 over a lower estimate of £ 6M, lot 13.
Art on paper or cardboard allows a great vividness of colors. Drei Pferde (three horses), gouache on card 34 x 48 cm executed in 1912, was sold for £ 15.4M including premium by Christie's on June 20, 2018 over a lower estimate of £ 2.5M, lot 14 B. Horses have a realistic shape but are surrounded by a cubist landscape. This work is illustrated in the tweet below.
Made the same year, Zwei Blaue Esel (two blue donkeys), gouache on paper 35 x 28 cm, was sold for £ 4.1M including premium by Sotheby's on February 4, 2020 over a lower estimate of £ 1M, lot 7.
The horse occupies the best place in Marc's art. The natural attitude of this animal is varied but always elegant. A group of horses is the pretext for building a perfect balance. With an image brought by Kandinsky, the horse becomes a powerful symbol of modern art when the two artists create the Der Blaue Reiter movement in 1911.
Grosse Landschaft I (large landscape I) shows a group of mares. This oil on canvas 110 x 212 cm painted in 1909 passed at Sotheby's on February 3, 2016 with a lower estimate of £ 4M, lot 6.
Weidende Pferde III (grazing horses III) stages four fiery males, each one in another attitude. The coats are red but manes and tails are blue. This oil on canvas 61 x 92 cm painted in 1910 was sold for £ 12.3M including premium by Sotheby's on February 5, 2008 over a lower estimate of £ 6M, lot 13.
Art on paper or cardboard allows a great vividness of colors. Drei Pferde (three horses), gouache on card 34 x 48 cm executed in 1912, was sold for £ 15.4M including premium by Christie's on June 20, 2018 over a lower estimate of £ 2.5M, lot 14 B. Horses have a realistic shape but are surrounded by a cubist landscape. This work is illustrated in the tweet below.
Made the same year, Zwei Blaue Esel (two blue donkeys), gouache on paper 35 x 28 cm, was sold for £ 4.1M including premium by Sotheby's on February 4, 2020 over a lower estimate of £ 1M, lot 7.
#AuctionUpdate ‘Drei Pferde’ by #FranzMarc achieves £15,421,250, more than 4 x the high estimate, making a new #WorldAuctionRecord for the artist. pic.twitter.com/Zk9zGc2j8G
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) June 20, 2018
1912 Bonnard in Grasse
2019 SOLD for $ 19.6M including premium
Pierre Bonnard is a tireless explorer of the countrysides of France, Europe and North Africa. As soon as he can, he settles with Marthe in a new resort for a few weeks or a few months. Initiated in 1909 to the delights and colors of the Midi, probably by Manguin, he stays from January to May 1912 in a villa in Grasse.
Grasse is one of the world capitals of perfumery. The period chosen for this holiday is conducive to the feeling of a rebirth of the Mediterranean vegetation.
On May 13 in New York, Christie's sells La Terrasse, oil on canvas 125 x 134 cm painted in Grasse, lot 42A estimated $ 5M.
This large picture is decidedly post-Impressionist. The soft and varied colors are intertwined and often complementary, building shapes that are sometimes indistinct. The composition is divided into two parts. The lower side is intimate : the sunny terrace is closed by a balustrade interrupted by a high arch. At the top, the landscape is half hidden behind a thick grove of palms and orange trees.
La Terrasse is not a realistic view but the interpretation of a moment or an atmosphere which immerses the observer until he imagines that he has taken the place of the painter.
The vision of details is mysterious. The character in the foreground on the right is either the artist or Marthe. Two little cats roam. The third cat on a stool is as stiff as a Bastet. Its enigma is solved when a closer observation reveals next to its stool a dog's head in white plaster.
Grasse is one of the world capitals of perfumery. The period chosen for this holiday is conducive to the feeling of a rebirth of the Mediterranean vegetation.
On May 13 in New York, Christie's sells La Terrasse, oil on canvas 125 x 134 cm painted in Grasse, lot 42A estimated $ 5M.
This large picture is decidedly post-Impressionist. The soft and varied colors are intertwined and often complementary, building shapes that are sometimes indistinct. The composition is divided into two parts. The lower side is intimate : the sunny terrace is closed by a balustrade interrupted by a high arch. At the top, the landscape is half hidden behind a thick grove of palms and orange trees.
La Terrasse is not a realistic view but the interpretation of a moment or an atmosphere which immerses the observer until he imagines that he has taken the place of the painter.
The vision of details is mysterious. The character in the foreground on the right is either the artist or Marthe. Two little cats roam. The third cat on a stool is as stiff as a Bastet. Its enigma is solved when a closer observation reveals next to its stool a dog's head in white plaster.
From The Collection of Drue Heinz, Pierre Bonnard's 'La Terrasse ou Une terrasse à Grasse' realizes $19,570,000, setting a new #WorldAuctionRecord for the artist https://t.co/sknodUVcKF pic.twitter.com/85J5c8Cbuj
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) May 14, 2019
1912 Serti Muguet by Cartier
2014 SOLD for CHF 16M including premium by Christie's
2019 SOLD for $ 10.6M including premium
PRE 2019 SALE DISCUSSION
At the turn of the 20th century, Paris is the capital of luxury. Located in rue de la Paix, the Cartier brand develops its expertise in jewelry and watchmaking and organizes a network of subcontractors including Henri Picq. One of its main innovations is the use of platinum for the high end.
France does not produce diamonds. The Cartier brothers visit India. The Maharajas choose the most beautiful gems in their collections for Cartier to assemble magnificent jewels matching their taste. This practice inspires some exotic designs later offered to all customers.
This well managed international reputation includes Southern Africa. Solomon Barnato Joel, who made a fortune with his family in the gold and diamond mines, ships four beautiful diamonds for making a jewel.
Cartier assembles a brooch in platinum and white gold for use as a devant de corsage, whose 9.2 cm high pendant aligns the four diamonds. The pendant is surrounded by four hanging sprigs of lily of the valley whose flowers are small diamonds set on platinum, a specialty of Picq. This jewel dated 1912 was later expanded by a necklace with a similar 'serti muguet'.
The four main diamonds were certified by the GIA in 2013. The largest is a pear-shaped of 34.08 carats in E color. The best is an oval-shaped type IIa D color of 23.55 carats with a VVS2 clarity potentially Internally Flawless.
This brooch was sold for CHF 16M including premium by Christie's on May 14, 2014 over a lower estimate of CHF 6.5M. It is estimated $ 10M for sale by Christie's in New York on June 19, lot 277.
At the turn of the 20th century, Paris is the capital of luxury. Located in rue de la Paix, the Cartier brand develops its expertise in jewelry and watchmaking and organizes a network of subcontractors including Henri Picq. One of its main innovations is the use of platinum for the high end.
France does not produce diamonds. The Cartier brothers visit India. The Maharajas choose the most beautiful gems in their collections for Cartier to assemble magnificent jewels matching their taste. This practice inspires some exotic designs later offered to all customers.
This well managed international reputation includes Southern Africa. Solomon Barnato Joel, who made a fortune with his family in the gold and diamond mines, ships four beautiful diamonds for making a jewel.
Cartier assembles a brooch in platinum and white gold for use as a devant de corsage, whose 9.2 cm high pendant aligns the four diamonds. The pendant is surrounded by four hanging sprigs of lily of the valley whose flowers are small diamonds set on platinum, a specialty of Picq. This jewel dated 1912 was later expanded by a necklace with a similar 'serti muguet'.
The four main diamonds were certified by the GIA in 2013. The largest is a pear-shaped of 34.08 carats in E color. The best is an oval-shaped type IIa D color of 23.55 carats with a VVS2 clarity potentially Internally Flawless.
This brooch was sold for CHF 16M including premium by Christie's on May 14, 2014 over a lower estimate of CHF 6.5M. It is estimated $ 10M for sale by Christie's in New York on June 19, lot 277.
double sided painting by Léger
1911-1912 Fumées sur les Toits and 1912-1913 Le 14 Juillet
2023 SOLD for $ 17.6M by Phillips
The important retrospective exhibition devoted to Cézanne in 1907 at the Grand Palais is a revelation for young artists who want to escape from post-impressionism. Painting is a construction that can be inspired by nature or object but must not claim to copy them. In such an assembly, the basic element is geometric and the use of pure colors is desired.
Under the watchful eye of Apollinaire the young artists are trying to define the pure painting. The avant-gardes need a prophet. They find Cézanne's statement that nature can be represented by the cylinder, the cone and the sphere. The new art will be based on a grammar of elementary forms associated with pure colors. Each artist develops a personal style.
Fernand Léger is obsessed with this posthumous teaching by Cézanne. In 1909 his Compotier sur table crushes the volumes in a plunging vision.
Fernand Léger's creative desire is limitless. In his large oil on canvas Nus dans la forêt painted in 1910 and revealed in 1911 at the Salon des Indépendants, he anticipates in a landscape the solutions of analytical cubism. He appreciates that if the composition becomes pre-eminent over the theme, painting can become an absolute art, free from sentimentalism and mysticism.
Léger admires the advances made by Cézanne while wanting to escape his theories. Geometric construction is indeed no more than a technique. The introduction of movement in painting by the Futurists is promising but remains anecdotal. Painting needs nothing else than displaying pure lines, shapes and colors which will capture the interest of the viewer by their own rhythm.
Cubism was born in 1911 in Puteaux around the Duchamp brothers. Modern life is intense, to the rhythm of automobiles, planes and machines. The realistic figuration is now out of date. The analytical cubism by Picasso and Braque reduces the legibility of the figuration in an attempt to promote an emotion.
Cézanne had not reached abstraction. From 1911, for liberating his art from the influence of his predecessor, Léger indifferently applies his new pictorial grammar to a range of works between figurative and abstract. The title guides the observer to look for the form. Within three years, he prepares three major works inspired by this trend : les Fumeurs, la Femme en bleu, le Modèle nu dans l'atelier.
In 1911 Léger settles in a new studio. From that year he executes a series of pre-Cubist paintings titled Fumées sur les toits displaying the view from his window towards Notre-Dame de Paris beyond the contrasting clouds of smoke from the chimney pots.
Painted in 1912-1913, Le 14 Juillet is a trial to introduce the bright blue white red of the French flag in a composition that includes a column that may be the Bastille. The mixing of the colors remind the impressionist Fête du 30 juin 1878 rue Montorgueil by Monet.
The verso of that canvas 60 x 46 cm had been obstructed by an opaque grayish material. It was in the practice of Léger in that period to scrap the works that did not meet his target of perfection. It was announced in 2022 by Dutch experts that the removal of the coating had revealed an unknown well colored version of Fumées sur les Toits. That picture in poor condition has been professionally restored.
The double sided painting was sold for $ 17.6M by Phillips on November 14, 2023, lot 10.
Under the watchful eye of Apollinaire the young artists are trying to define the pure painting. The avant-gardes need a prophet. They find Cézanne's statement that nature can be represented by the cylinder, the cone and the sphere. The new art will be based on a grammar of elementary forms associated with pure colors. Each artist develops a personal style.
Fernand Léger is obsessed with this posthumous teaching by Cézanne. In 1909 his Compotier sur table crushes the volumes in a plunging vision.
Fernand Léger's creative desire is limitless. In his large oil on canvas Nus dans la forêt painted in 1910 and revealed in 1911 at the Salon des Indépendants, he anticipates in a landscape the solutions of analytical cubism. He appreciates that if the composition becomes pre-eminent over the theme, painting can become an absolute art, free from sentimentalism and mysticism.
Léger admires the advances made by Cézanne while wanting to escape his theories. Geometric construction is indeed no more than a technique. The introduction of movement in painting by the Futurists is promising but remains anecdotal. Painting needs nothing else than displaying pure lines, shapes and colors which will capture the interest of the viewer by their own rhythm.
Cubism was born in 1911 in Puteaux around the Duchamp brothers. Modern life is intense, to the rhythm of automobiles, planes and machines. The realistic figuration is now out of date. The analytical cubism by Picasso and Braque reduces the legibility of the figuration in an attempt to promote an emotion.
Cézanne had not reached abstraction. From 1911, for liberating his art from the influence of his predecessor, Léger indifferently applies his new pictorial grammar to a range of works between figurative and abstract. The title guides the observer to look for the form. Within three years, he prepares three major works inspired by this trend : les Fumeurs, la Femme en bleu, le Modèle nu dans l'atelier.
In 1911 Léger settles in a new studio. From that year he executes a series of pre-Cubist paintings titled Fumées sur les toits displaying the view from his window towards Notre-Dame de Paris beyond the contrasting clouds of smoke from the chimney pots.
Painted in 1912-1913, Le 14 Juillet is a trial to introduce the bright blue white red of the French flag in a composition that includes a column that may be the Bastille. The mixing of the colors remind the impressionist Fête du 30 juin 1878 rue Montorgueil by Monet.
The verso of that canvas 60 x 46 cm had been obstructed by an opaque grayish material. It was in the practice of Léger in that period to scrap the works that did not meet his target of perfection. It was announced in 2022 by Dutch experts that the removal of the coating had revealed an unknown well colored version of Fumées sur les Toits. That picture in poor condition has been professionally restored.
The double sided painting was sold for $ 17.6M by Phillips on November 14, 2023, lot 10.
1912 The Prophet of Fire
2018 SOLD for $ 14M including premium
Ludwig Meidner got a good artistic training but his first activity as a fashion illustrator failed to provide him with decent living conditions. Installed in Berlin, he is subjugated in 1911 by an exhibition of the Italian Futurists. He comes now closer to the avant-gardes and gets help from Beckmann.
Assimilating his vocation to that of a hallucinated Jewish prophet, Meidner paints a series of Apocalyptic landscapes that offer a highly original style and appeal to the Expressionists.
On November 12 in New York, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas 94 x 109 cm painted by Meidner in 1912, lot 25 estimated $ 12M. It is painted on both sides, a practice quite common in German groups, particularly understandable here considering the large size of the canvas and the poor resources of the artist. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
The front side is an Apokalyptische Landschaft, with an expression of horror comparable to Munch's Scream. Two thick rivers of incandescent lava pour into an already shaken city where houses ready to collapse bend in all directions, anticipating the landscapes dislocated by Soutine. In the foreground two characters run madly. Columns of troops roam the square of this city of German architecture, making this artwork a premonition of the First World War.
The reverse seems in total contrast with the front. A serious young man reads a book. With his unusually hollowed cheeks, if he is not a self-portrait, he is at least a projection of the artist on his own misery.
The war breaks the creative impulse of Ludwig Meidner, who will continue his career with self-portraits and imaginary portraits of prophets and will be cataloged as a degenerate artist in 1937. He will never reach fame but Baselitz will remember his Apocalypses for howling against the Berlin wall.
Assimilating his vocation to that of a hallucinated Jewish prophet, Meidner paints a series of Apocalyptic landscapes that offer a highly original style and appeal to the Expressionists.
On November 12 in New York, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas 94 x 109 cm painted by Meidner in 1912, lot 25 estimated $ 12M. It is painted on both sides, a practice quite common in German groups, particularly understandable here considering the large size of the canvas and the poor resources of the artist. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
The front side is an Apokalyptische Landschaft, with an expression of horror comparable to Munch's Scream. Two thick rivers of incandescent lava pour into an already shaken city where houses ready to collapse bend in all directions, anticipating the landscapes dislocated by Soutine. In the foreground two characters run madly. Columns of troops roam the square of this city of German architecture, making this artwork a premonition of the First World War.
The reverse seems in total contrast with the front. A serious young man reads a book. With his unusually hollowed cheeks, if he is not a self-portrait, he is at least a projection of the artist on his own misery.
The war breaks the creative impulse of Ludwig Meidner, who will continue his career with self-portraits and imaginary portraits of prophets and will be cataloged as a degenerate artist in 1937. He will never reach fame but Baselitz will remember his Apocalypses for howling against the Berlin wall.
1912 The Eyes of the Boat
2019 SOLD for £ 10.7M including premium
Egon and Wally live together since the end of 1911. He is 21 years old and she is 17. She is the main model of his erotic art. The neighbors seek to protect their teenage daughters against the sulphurous influence of the young couple. Egon and Wally leave Vienna and Krumau successively and settle in the village of Neulengbach.
After another complaint Egon Schiele spends 24 days in the prison of Neulengbach, in April 1912. His conviction was limited to an offense against morality for exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible to children.
Once out of this ordeal, Schiele feels the need to change air. In May he spends a few days in Trieste, a place he loved, in the pleasant atmosphere of the fishing port.
On February 26 in London, Sotheby's sells Triestiner Fischerboot, lot 9 estimated £ 6M, oil on canvas certainly painted in his studio in Vienna around the end of 1912.
On a square format 70 x 70 cm, the composition is symmetrical and flat. The boat is seen from the front, in a rather naive drawing and without perspective. The colors are rich and saturated, in the morbid style that Schiele had already practiced.
The perspective is nevertheless present by the water that deviates in front of the boat as if she was rushing onto the observer. At the foreground of the boat two anchor points increase the threat of this subject that could have been peaceful. Black in a bright red orbit, they are on both sides of the main axis like the intimidating taotie of the Chinese liturgical bronzes.
The logical continuation of Triestiner Fischerboot is the series of haunted cityscapes of Krumau in which no human presence is needed to express the artist's feelings. Until 1912 Schiele could have become a cursed artist. This is not the case : fame comes to him as early as 1913 with his first solo exhibition.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
After another complaint Egon Schiele spends 24 days in the prison of Neulengbach, in April 1912. His conviction was limited to an offense against morality for exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible to children.
Once out of this ordeal, Schiele feels the need to change air. In May he spends a few days in Trieste, a place he loved, in the pleasant atmosphere of the fishing port.
On February 26 in London, Sotheby's sells Triestiner Fischerboot, lot 9 estimated £ 6M, oil on canvas certainly painted in his studio in Vienna around the end of 1912.
On a square format 70 x 70 cm, the composition is symmetrical and flat. The boat is seen from the front, in a rather naive drawing and without perspective. The colors are rich and saturated, in the morbid style that Schiele had already practiced.
The perspective is nevertheless present by the water that deviates in front of the boat as if she was rushing onto the observer. At the foreground of the boat two anchor points increase the threat of this subject that could have been peaceful. Black in a bright red orbit, they are on both sides of the main axis like the intimidating taotie of the Chinese liturgical bronzes.
The logical continuation of Triestiner Fischerboot is the series of haunted cityscapes of Krumau in which no human presence is needed to express the artist's feelings. Until 1912 Schiele could have become a cursed artist. This is not the case : fame comes to him as early as 1913 with his first solo exhibition.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
#AuctionUpdate We’re sailing away with Egon Schiele’s uniquely modernist depiction of a fishing boat in Trieste. Offered at auction for the first time, this square-format painting brings £10.7 million #SothebysImpMod pic.twitter.com/F0CVexb5uK
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) February 26, 2019
1912 A Plaster Portrait by Brancusi
2012 SOLD 12.4 M$ including premium
From the very beginnings of Cubist painting, Brancusi feels that a simplification of forms is also possible in sculpture without abandoning the figurative art.
Portraiting the women made him busy for several years. The facial features become slightly marked through more simple growths or deformations. Within this period, the heads of his two main models, Baroness Frachon and Miss Pogany, remain recognizable.
On November 7 in New York, Christie's sells a plaster of the Baroness, entitled Une Muse, made in 1912, 46 cm high. This sculpture is shown in the press release shared by Artdaily.
At this time, the artist develops two opposite representations of his muse-baroness. Asleep, she has lost her neck and her personality also fades. Awakened, as in the example coming for sale, the effect is more psychological and the simplification is still far from abstraction. The gaze is empty, but the mouth invites to communication.
The estimate of $ 10M is high for a plaster, even by Brancusi. Note, however, the outstanding history of this piece which contributed to the reputation of the artist the following year in an exhibition at the Armory Show in New York.
I invite you to play the video shared by Christie's.
POST SALE COMMENT
The very good price of this plaster, $ 12.4 million including premium is related to its exceptional positioning in the development of Brancusi's creativity.
Portraiting the women made him busy for several years. The facial features become slightly marked through more simple growths or deformations. Within this period, the heads of his two main models, Baroness Frachon and Miss Pogany, remain recognizable.
On November 7 in New York, Christie's sells a plaster of the Baroness, entitled Une Muse, made in 1912, 46 cm high. This sculpture is shown in the press release shared by Artdaily.
At this time, the artist develops two opposite representations of his muse-baroness. Asleep, she has lost her neck and her personality also fades. Awakened, as in the example coming for sale, the effect is more psychological and the simplification is still far from abstraction. The gaze is empty, but the mouth invites to communication.
The estimate of $ 10M is high for a plaster, even by Brancusi. Note, however, the outstanding history of this piece which contributed to the reputation of the artist the following year in an exhibition at the Armory Show in New York.
I invite you to play the video shared by Christie's.
POST SALE COMMENT
The very good price of this plaster, $ 12.4 million including premium is related to its exceptional positioning in the development of Brancusi's creativity.
