Le quai à sable, environs de Port-Marly by Alfred Sisley
I thought the Art of the Surreal sale would be the big triumph at Christie’s last week. However, it seems like they ended up with a better week than anticipated, given the success of their Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper sale on Friday, March 7th. While there were no multi-million pound lots, the sale was incredible to watch for several other reasons, including a substantial portion of the sale selling not only above their estimates but exponentially so.
Most of the sale was made up of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century works by the modern European masters. And the top lots are reflective of that. On top was an 1875 landscape by Alfred Sisley showing the town of Le Port-Marly, located on the banks of the River Seine just northwest of Paris. The artist spent two years in the town between 1875 and 1877 and created many paintings of the surrounding area. The work also has a rather impressive provenance, including Galerie Durand-Ruel, Knoedler & Co., and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It has been in the same private collection since 1996 after it sold at Christie’s for $620K hammer. Christie’s specialists clearly expected that the Sisley would retain its value in the thirty years since it last appeared on the market, as they gave it an estimate range of £500K to £700K. The work ended up squarely in the middle, hammering for £600K / $774.7K (or £756K / $976.1K w/p).
Homme assis by Henri Matisse
Homme assis, a painting from 1900 by Henri Matisse, came in right behind the Sisley. The colors and the broad brushstrokes herald the advent of the artist’s fauvist style, which he would pioneer in the years following the creation of Homme assis. The work is rather rare since it has been kept from the secondary market for so long. It was part of the artist’s estate at the time of his death in 1954 and remained in his family until they sold it at Christie’s Paris in 2023, where it made €390.6K w/p. The Matisse fared far better in London, where several interested parties drove the final hammer price up to £580K / $748.9K (or £730.8K / $943.6K w/p). And finally, it can’t truly be an Impressionist and modern art sale without a Chagall. Femme à l’âne vert ou Tête de vache verte is a painting dating to 1953, showing several of the artist’s characteristic motifs, including human figures, flowers, and animals, against a night sky. Some believe that the woman in the painting may reference Valentina Brodsky, who Chagall had married only the year before the painting’s creation. The work was in the collection of Willy and Marina Staehelin-Peyer, art collectors based in Zürich who had part of their collection sold by Sotheby’s in 2016. The Chagall secured the third-place spot despite falling short of its £550K low estimate. It accrued a few bids before hammering at £450K / $581K (or £567K / $732.1K w/p).
Femme à l’âne vert ou Tête de vache verte by Marc Chagall
What made the Impressionist and Modern Art Day sale remarkable was the amount of attention many of the lots drew to the point that they sold far above their high estimates. Of the one hundred twenty-five available lots, twenty-nine sold for more than double their high estimates. Seven sold for five times the estimate or higher. However, the greatest surprises were two works on paper by Marc Chagall. Both, owned by the Chagall family, are ink drawings done with pen and brush and stamped with Chagall’s signature. Études en noir et blanc dates to 1956 and is the larger of the two, measuring 10 ½ by 7 inches. Christie’s gave it a high estimate of £800. Christie’s expected the other, Prière dans la nuit, to sell for no more than £600. It is an earlier work from 1935 and is far smaller at just under 5 by 3 inches. Both drawings drew a great amount of attention, with their final hammer prices skyrocketing far past their pre-sale estimates. Études en noir et blanc sold for over seventeen times its high estimate, hammering at £14K / $18.1K (or £17.6K / $22.8K w/p). Prière dans la nuit, on the other hand, sold for over twenty-one times its estimate, selling for £13K / $16.8K (or £16.4K / $21.1K w/p). Overall, the auction did exceptionally well. Of the one hundred twenty-five available lots, sixty-two sold above their estimates. This accounts for slightly under 50% of the sale. An additional twenty-seven lots sold below their estimates, while twenty-eight sold within, giving Christie’s specialists a 22% accuracy rate. Only eight lots (6%) went unsold on Friday. Christie’s initially expected the entire sale to bring in between £6.6 million and £9.6 million. The lots that did sell added up to £8.2 million / $10.6 million.
Christie’s London Impressionist & Modern Art
Le quai à sable, environs de Port-Marly by Alfred Sisley
I thought the Art of the Surreal sale would be the big triumph at Christie’s last week. However, it seems like they ended up with a better week than anticipated, given the success of their Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper sale on Friday, March 7th. While there were no multi-million pound lots, the sale was incredible to watch for several other reasons, including a substantial portion of the sale selling not only above their estimates but exponentially so.
Most of the sale was made up of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century works by the modern European masters. And the top lots are reflective of that. On top was an 1875 landscape by Alfred Sisley showing the town of Le Port-Marly, located on the banks of the River Seine just northwest of Paris. The artist spent two years in the town between 1875 and 1877 and created many paintings of the surrounding area. The work also has a rather impressive provenance, including Galerie Durand-Ruel, Knoedler & Co., and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It has been in the same private collection since 1996 after it sold at Christie’s for $620K hammer. Christie’s specialists clearly expected that the Sisley would retain its value in the thirty years since it last appeared on the market, as they gave it an estimate range of £500K to £700K. The work ended up squarely in the middle, hammering for £600K / $774.7K (or £756K / $976.1K w/p).
Homme assis by Henri Matisse
Homme assis, a painting from 1900 by Henri Matisse, came in right behind the Sisley. The colors and the broad brushstrokes herald the advent of the artist’s fauvist style, which he would pioneer in the years following the creation of Homme assis. The work is rather rare since it has been kept from the secondary market for so long. It was part of the artist’s estate at the time of his death in 1954 and remained in his family until they sold it at Christie’s Paris in 2023, where it made €390.6K w/p. The Matisse fared far better in London, where several interested parties drove the final hammer price up to £580K / $748.9K (or £730.8K / $943.6K w/p). And finally, it can’t truly be an Impressionist and modern art sale without a Chagall. Femme à l’âne vert ou Tête de vache verte is a painting dating to 1953, showing several of the artist’s characteristic motifs, including human figures, flowers, and animals, against a night sky. Some believe that the woman in the painting may reference Valentina Brodsky, who Chagall had married only the year before the painting’s creation. The work was in the collection of Willy and Marina Staehelin-Peyer, art collectors based in Zürich who had part of their collection sold by Sotheby’s in 2016. The Chagall secured the third-place spot despite falling short of its £550K low estimate. It accrued a few bids before hammering at £450K / $581K (or £567K / $732.1K w/p).
Femme à l’âne vert ou Tête de vache verte by Marc Chagall
What made the Impressionist and Modern Art Day sale remarkable was the amount of attention many of the lots drew to the point that they sold far above their high estimates. Of the one hundred twenty-five available lots, twenty-nine sold for more than double their high estimates. Seven sold for five times the estimate or higher. However, the greatest surprises were two works on paper by Marc Chagall. Both, owned by the Chagall family, are ink drawings done with pen and brush and stamped with Chagall’s signature. Études en noir et blanc dates to 1956 and is the larger of the two, measuring 10 ½ by 7 inches. Christie’s gave it a high estimate of £800. Christie’s expected the other, Prière dans la nuit, to sell for no more than £600. It is an earlier work from 1935 and is far smaller at just under 5 by 3 inches. Both drawings drew a great amount of attention, with their final hammer prices skyrocketing far past their pre-sale estimates. Études en noir et blanc sold for over seventeen times its high estimate, hammering at £14K / $18.1K (or £17.6K / $22.8K w/p). Prière dans la nuit, on the other hand, sold for over twenty-one times its estimate, selling for £13K / $16.8K (or £16.4K / $21.1K w/p). Overall, the auction did exceptionally well. Of the one hundred twenty-five available lots, sixty-two sold above their estimates. This accounts for slightly under 50% of the sale. An additional twenty-seven lots sold below their estimates, while twenty-eight sold within, giving Christie’s specialists a 22% accuracy rate. Only eight lots (6%) went unsold on Friday. Christie’s initially expected the entire sale to bring in between £6.6 million and £9.6 million. The lots that did sell added up to £8.2 million / $10.6 million.