La Leçon d’écriture by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Immediately before their 20th/21st Century evening sale on Wednesday, April 9th, Christie’s Paris hosted a short auction featuring the personal collection of Henri Canonne.
Canonne was a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who, starting in the 1920s, assembled one of the most impressive collections of Impressionist and modern artworks in the world. Since his death in 1961, the Canonne family has held onto his collection until consigning many of the works to Christie’s. The hour-long sale featured works mainly by European painters like Utrillo and Boudin. But on Wednesday, Renoir’s works took the top spots. La Leçon d’écriture, or The Writing Lesson, is dated circa 1905 and is believed to show the artist’s son Claude with long hair, which was fashionable at the time. The maternal figure giving him his lesson is believed to be the boy’s nurse, Gabrielle Renard, who appears in several of Renoir’s paintings. An alternate version of this painting is on display at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Christie’s expected this work to be the star of the sale, giving it a presale estimate range of €2 million to €3 million. However, the Renoir fell just short, hammering at €1.95 million / $2.15 million (or €2.4 million / $2.65 million w/p).
Nu sur un fauteuil by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Another Renoir came up in second place. Nu sur un fauteuil is a simple feminine nude dating to about 1900. Female nudes were one of the artist’s most common subjects, as he drew a great amount of inspiration from the female form. This has drawn criticism from more recent assessments of Renoir’s work, but later artists have cited these nudes as a source of inspiration, including Picasso. Christie’s anticipated Nu sur un fauteuil to become the sales second-place lot, giving it a high estimate of €700K. With several interested buyers, the final price steadily rose until it came close to double that number at €1.3 million / $1.4 million (or €1.6 million / $1.78 million w/p). Another female nude followed the Renoir, this one by Pierre Bonnard. Femme à demi-nue ou Nu se coiffant devant la glace shows a young woman, dressed only from the waist down, combing her hair in front of a mirror. Bonnard was part of a generation of painters that came after the Impressionists, inspired mainly by Cézanne and Gauguin. Bonnard, together with painters like Vuillard, Sérusier, and others, formed what became known as Les Nabis, whose work Henri Canonne was an avid collector. Along with the two Renoir paintings, the Bonnard was the only other painting Christie’s specialists predicted would sell for more than €100K. They predicted it would between €350K and €550K. The hammer eventually came down on the slightly higher end at €490K / $541.2K (or €617.4K / $681.9K w/p).
Femme à demi-nue ou Nu se coiffant devant la glace by Pierre Bonnard
With such a small sale, there were only a few surprises. A total of three lots sold for more than twice their high estimate. Among them were a winter street scene by Maurice de Vlaminck and a watercolor by Johan Jongkind. The Jongkind shows a chateau in the north of Provence, while the opposite side has a chalk drawing of the coast of the Gulf of Trieste. Fourteen of the thirty lots were Jongkind watercolors, mainly landscapes made between 1877 and 1888. Christie’s expected the Château de Lesdiguières watercolor to sell for no more than €1.8K, yet sold for €3.8K / $4.2K (or €4.8K / $5.3K w/p).
Of the thirty lots available on Wednesday, thirteen sold within their estimates, giving Christie’s a 43% accuracy rate. An additional eleven (37%) sold above their estimates, while five (17%) sold below. With only one lot going unsold (a watercolor by André Dunoyer de Segonzac), Christie’s achieved a 97% sell-through rate. So despite La Leçon d’écriture falling slightly short of its estimate, the Canonne collection as a whole did very well, bringing in €4.3 million / $4.77 million against a low estimate of €3.2 million.
Christie’s Paris Canonne Collection
La Leçon d’écriture by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Immediately before their 20th/21st Century evening sale on Wednesday, April 9th, Christie’s Paris hosted a short auction featuring the personal collection of Henri Canonne.
Canonne was a pharmaceutical entrepreneur who, starting in the 1920s, assembled one of the most impressive collections of Impressionist and modern artworks in the world. Since his death in 1961, the Canonne family has held onto his collection until consigning many of the works to Christie’s. The hour-long sale featured works mainly by European painters like Utrillo and Boudin. But on Wednesday, Renoir’s works took the top spots. La Leçon d’écriture, or The Writing Lesson, is dated circa 1905 and is believed to show the artist’s son Claude with long hair, which was fashionable at the time. The maternal figure giving him his lesson is believed to be the boy’s nurse, Gabrielle Renard, who appears in several of Renoir’s paintings. An alternate version of this painting is on display at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Christie’s expected this work to be the star of the sale, giving it a presale estimate range of €2 million to €3 million. However, the Renoir fell just short, hammering at €1.95 million / $2.15 million (or €2.4 million / $2.65 million w/p).
Nu sur un fauteuil by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Another Renoir came up in second place. Nu sur un fauteuil is a simple feminine nude dating to about 1900. Female nudes were one of the artist’s most common subjects, as he drew a great amount of inspiration from the female form. This has drawn criticism from more recent assessments of Renoir’s work, but later artists have cited these nudes as a source of inspiration, including Picasso. Christie’s anticipated Nu sur un fauteuil to become the sales second-place lot, giving it a high estimate of €700K. With several interested buyers, the final price steadily rose until it came close to double that number at €1.3 million / $1.4 million (or €1.6 million / $1.78 million w/p). Another female nude followed the Renoir, this one by Pierre Bonnard. Femme à demi-nue ou Nu se coiffant devant la glace shows a young woman, dressed only from the waist down, combing her hair in front of a mirror. Bonnard was part of a generation of painters that came after the Impressionists, inspired mainly by Cézanne and Gauguin. Bonnard, together with painters like Vuillard, Sérusier, and others, formed what became known as Les Nabis, whose work Henri Canonne was an avid collector. Along with the two Renoir paintings, the Bonnard was the only other painting Christie’s specialists predicted would sell for more than €100K. They predicted it would between €350K and €550K. The hammer eventually came down on the slightly higher end at €490K / $541.2K (or €617.4K / $681.9K w/p).
Femme à demi-nue ou Nu se coiffant devant la glace by Pierre Bonnard
With such a small sale, there were only a few surprises. A total of three lots sold for more than twice their high estimate. Among them were a winter street scene by Maurice de Vlaminck and a watercolor by Johan Jongkind. The Jongkind shows a chateau in the north of Provence, while the opposite side has a chalk drawing of the coast of the Gulf of Trieste. Fourteen of the thirty lots were Jongkind watercolors, mainly landscapes made between 1877 and 1888. Christie’s expected the Château de Lesdiguières watercolor to sell for no more than €1.8K, yet sold for €3.8K / $4.2K (or €4.8K / $5.3K w/p).
Of the thirty lots available on Wednesday, thirteen sold within their estimates, giving Christie’s a 43% accuracy rate. An additional eleven (37%) sold above their estimates, while five (17%) sold below. With only one lot going unsold (a watercolor by André Dunoyer de Segonzac), Christie’s achieved a 97% sell-through rate. So despite La Leçon d’écriture falling slightly short of its estimate, the Canonne collection as a whole did very well, bringing in €4.3 million / $4.77 million against a low estimate of €3.2 million.