Sotheby’s Polly Satori gives a nice art history lesson covering Courbet and Bougereau on the theme of Cupid and Psyche:
Muddled in Munnings
[intro]19th C Pictures at Christie’s[/intro]
The 2010 season has begun and out of the starting gate were the New York Old Master & 19th century auctions. For their big sales, Sotheby’s stuck to the old formula of offering only Old Master paintings; however Christie’s continued with their new formula – a merger of Old Master & 19th century works.
Christie’s is determined to prove that they made a good move by combining the two departments, but you already know my thoughts on this — I do not like it.
Granted, financially they made a good move – less staff, means less overhead and more profit – and they did use typical 19th century works for most of their cover illustrations. Christie’s claims the main cover is also a 19th century work and they are right when looking at its date (1812), but Louis Boilly paintings are normally sold in Old Master sales; and while a few of the paintings look nice together, most do not – the heavily religious Old Masters are just so different from the more romantic/sentimental works of the 19th and 20th centuries — in my humble opinion.
In addition, I know we can all agree that paintings by Dorothea Sharp, Montague Dawson, Sorbi and Seago do not work with those by Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Nicolas de Largillierre and Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli. I have to add that Sotheby’s also has an Old Master/19th Century sale this week, but it consists of the less expensive works and the first half of the catalog only offers Old Masters while the second half is devoted to the 19th century … that is something I can deal with – one book, 2 sections.
Anyway, let’s move on to the action at Christie’s.Continue Reading
Corot's Spiritual Side
Carol Vogel’s New York Times column highlights the changing taste within the Old Master and 19th Century painting field. Christie’s department head pitches a turn toward the spiritual to describe the appeal of this Corot:
when the old-master auctions start in New York on Jan. 27, Mr. Hall predicts that one painting that will be getting a lot of attention is Corot’s “Étoile du Berger” (“The Evening Star”), an 1863 canvas of a young woman, her outstretched hand reaching toward the sky, mirroring a branch above her. It is similar in size — more than 3 feet by 4 feet — and subject matter to a series from the same decade hanging at the National Gallery in London. “It’s a very grand scale, and works like this rarely come on the market,” Mr. Hall said.
It’s not simply the subject matter that may interest buyers. “While this painting has been seen by scholars, it has not been included in any of the Corot literature,” Mr. Hall said. The heirs of Charles H. Foster, a St. Louis family, have owned the painting for decades. For years it hung on extended loan at the St. Louis Art Museum, until they consigned it to Christie’s. Experts there predict that the work will bring $1.2 million to $1.8 million.
Inside Art: All Eyes on a Corot (New York Times)