“Le Printemps” was created by French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1858.
Courtesy of Christie’s
Le Printemps is in the air—and headed for the auction block in June.
The oil on canvas painting, the name of which translates to “spring,” was created by French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1858. It’s part of the Ann & Gordon Getty Collection being offered by Christie’s during a live auction in New York on June 14 and two online sales ending on June 15. The collection features “furniture and decorative arts honoring the rich eclecticism of the late 19th and 20th centuries,” according to the auction house. Proceeds from the sale will benefit arts and science organizations created by the Gettys.
The auction will include pieces from the couple’s Berkeley, Calif., home. Dubbed the Temple of Wings, the Greco-Roman style house was built in 1924 for a local artist. The Gettys bought the property in 1994, subsequently filling it with art and furnishings from the turn of the 20th century.
The interior of the Berkeley home “blended the earnest tenets of the Arts and Crafts movement, the magical productions of Tiffany Studios, and the aesthetic costume of Fortuny with Roman maidens of [artists Frederic] Leighton and [Lawrence] Alma-Tadema,” Jonathan Rendell, Christie’s deputy chairman of the Americas, said in a statement. “It was a magical place.”
Among the lots is Bouguereau’s Le Printemps, which is expected to fetch between US$250,000 and US$350,000 under the hammer. The piece features three “classicized figures participating in activities associated with springtime” and was commissioned for a 19th-century Parisian home, according to Christie’s. The painting helped establish the artist in France after he returned from Italy.
“Le Printemps was part of the decorative scheme of the Salon des Saisons of the Hôtel Pereire, the home of the Parisian banker, parliamentarian, and railroad industrialist Émile Pereire, who commissioned Bouguereau to decorate two rooms of his house in 1857. … The opulent home, located at 35-37 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, now houses the British Embassy in Paris,” according to marketing materials for the sale.
“A Coign of Vantage,” a 1895 oil on panel painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, is priced at between US$2.5 million and US$3.5 million
Courtesy of Christie’s
Another highlight is A Coign of Vantage, a 1895 oil on panel painting by Alma-Tadema that’s priced at between US$2.5 million and US$3.5 million. Depicting three women on a marble bench at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, “A Coign of Vantage has come to be regarded as one of the artist’s quintessential masterpieces,” according to Christie’s.
“In many ways it anchored the collection at Temple of Wings, echoing the architect’s conception of the house as a Roman villa maritima, overlooking Berkeley and the bay just as its antecedents had looked out over the Bay of Naples,” according to the auction house, which noted it was an early acquisition for the collection.
Other lots include a leaded glass and bronze Wisteria table lamp created circa 1903 by Tiffany Studios, set to fetch between US$400,000 and US$600,000, and a hand-knotted William Morris Hammersmith carpet from around 1890 that could achieve as much as US$100,000.
A hand-knotted William Morris Hammersmith carpet from around 1890.
Courtesy of Christie’s
Ann Getty, who died in 2020 at the age of 79, was an interior designer and paleoanthropologist who worked on archeological digs in Turkey and Ethiopia. Her husband, Gordon Peter Getty, 89, is a composer and the fourth child of industrialist J. Paul Getty, whose celebrated collection of art and antiquities formed the basis of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Together, the couple supported numerous philanthropic causes throughout California and New York.
The June event is the second installment of the Getty Collection, following an October sale, which garnered more than $150 million across 10 auctions, according to Christie’s. More than 1,500 fine and decorative art objects were sold, with the proceeds to benefit the couple’s charity, The Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation for the Arts.
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