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- One of the most desirable works of modern art in private hands, and among the definitive images of Surrealist art, René Magritte’s L’empire des lumières captures the visual paradox that lies at the heart of the artist’s originality. The instantly recognisable work was created in 1961 for Baroness Anne-Marie Gillion Crowet, the daughter of Magritte’s patron the Belgian Surrealist collector Pierre Crowet, and has remained in the family ever since. Anne-Marie embodied Magritte’s aesthetic ideal, even before he actually met her. Uncannily, her likeness is found in a number of works executed before their first meeting, when he famously said to her: “Tu vois, je te peignais déjà avant de te connaître”. Thereafter she became a lifelong friend of Magritte and his wife Georgette, appearing in many of the artist’s most significant paintings. With an estimate in excess of $60 million, this masterpiece of twentieth century art will be offered as the star of Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction in London on 2 March. Exhibited worldwide in Brussels, Rome, Paris, Vienna, Milan, Seoul, Edinburgh and San Francisco, L’empire des lumières was most recently on loan to the Musée Magritte in Brussels from 2009-2020, surrounded by the finest collection of Magritte paintings in the world. Prior to the auction, the painting will be publicly exhibited in Sotheby’s galleries in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, New York and London. “A masterpiece of 20th-century art, L’empire des lumières brings together the two most fundamental elements of daily life – those of day and night – onto one paradoxical canvas. With its impressive scale, the cinematic painting draws the viewer into Magritte’s timeless world. Its immediacy and power encapsulate the ‘star quality’ that places Magritte firmly among the pantheon of the market’s most sought-after artists. We could not be more thrilled to start the new year by presenting this show-stopping work in London, where it represents a new benchmark both for the artist and the global art market.” --Helena Newman, Chairman of Sotheby's Europe and Worldwide Head of Impressionist & Modern Art Anne-Marie Gillion Crowet & Magritte Magritte’s first meeting with Anne-Marie, when he recognised her as the embodiment of the muse that already inhabited his imagination, took place when she was 16 years old and he was asked to paint her portrait. In the years that followed, her face, now known to him by name, continued to appear in many of his major paintings. From their first meeting, the pair formed a close bond, with the artist sending her little drawings and showing her his latest paintings, even painting one for her on the occasion of the birth of her daughter. Well and truly a part of his inner world, Anne-Marie would play chess with the artist at his favourite bistro and spend evenings with the family watching Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton movies. Together with her husband Roland, Anne-Marie is a key figure in Belgium’s cultural scene: their Art Nouveau collection has been donated to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (where it occupies an entire floor). The Dominion of Light Magritte first started work on a version of this subject in 1948, returning to the idea numerous times over the next decade, carefully reimagining and enriching each new composition. The resulting group of seventeen oils titled L’empire des lumières constitute Magritte’s only real attempt to create a ‘series’ within his oeuvre. The works evolved over time whilst still speaking to one another, much in the same way as Vincent van Gogh’s starry nights and Claude Monet’s waterlilies. The series was an immediate hit with the public and collectors alike – with the first version bought by Nelson Rockefeller and examples now held in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Menil Collection, Houston and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels. This example is among the greatest in scale, measuring 114.5 by 146cm., 45 by 57½in., the largest in a horizontal format. The subject may have been inspired by André Breton’s poem L’Aigrette, which Magritte knew well, with the verse opening: ‘Si seulement il faisait du soleil cette nuit’ (‘If only the sun were to come out tonight’). The uncanny combination of a dark, night-time street underneath a bright blue sky is typical of Magritte’s unsettling Surrealist imagery – in which two seemingly incompatible things are brought together to create a “false reality”. The suburban setting itself is recognisable, depicting a quiet street near the Parc Josaphat in Brussels where the artist had moved in 1954. Surrealist art and filmmaking were inextricably linked, and this majestic image is arguably the most cinematic of all of Magritte’s oeuvre. Testament to its arresting power, the work even provided inspiration for a scene in the 1973 Golden Globe-winning classic The Exorcist. Five works by Claude Monet | ||
This March, Sotheby’s will present five works by Claude Monet painted during a formative fifteen-year period during his career, charting the artist’s pivot from an Impressionist painter to the father of Abstract Expressionism. Monet x Monet | A Distinguished American Collection paints a picture of how Monet approached the concept of capturing colour and light on canvas in an increasingly modern and abstract way, through a range of key motifs. From a flower-filled canvas that prefigures Monet’s celebrated late water lily paintings, to a rhythmic depiction of loosely bundled together grainstacks, and two landscapes painted under different weather conditions at opposing ends of the seasons, the works – all of which pre-date 1900 –encapsulate the ‘modern’ Monet that had such a profound influence on later artists and movements. With a combined estimate in the region of $50 million (£35 million), the paintings will be offered in Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction in London on 2 March 2022.
Massif de chrysanthèmes, estimated at £10 – 15 million, is one of four still-lifes devoted to chrysanthemums painted by Monet in 1897. Radically challenging the long and illustrious tradition of still-life painting, both the subject and the composition – in which the flowers occupy the entire canvas, with the edges of the painting cropping the composition – had much to do with Monet’s fascination with Japan, a fascination he shared with many of his contemporaries. In 1854, Japanese ports opened up to Western trade for the first time in 200 years, sparking a vogue for Japonisme that penetrated almost every aspect of Western life.
It was at this time that Monet first came across Japanese prints – used as wrapping paper at a spice shop in The Netherlands. He quickly became a keen collector, adorning the walls of his studio with prints which were a complement to flowers (including chrysanthemums) he grew in his garden. The composition of the painting was almost certainly inspired by the work of the great Japanese print-maker Hokusai, whose prints of “Large Flowers” Monet owned. In fact, the influence of Hokusai’s depictions of flowers without backgrounds can also be seen in Monet’s Water Lilies, and it is no coincidence that the artist’s first water lily paintings date from the same year he produced these close-up paintings of flowers. Similarly, the Chrysanthemum holds a special status in Japan – a symbol of power and, often, of the country itself. Perhaps fittingly, therefore, this picture was most recently exhibited in Japan, in 1995, and at one time during its prestigious ownership history, it entered a private Japanese collection.
It is also possible that Monet had his close friend, Gustave Caillebotte at the forefront of his mind, as Caillebotte’s brother had gifted to Monet a large painting of the flowers as a keepsake following the artist’s death in 1894 – a work Monet kept for the remainder of his life.
Estimated at £15 – 20 million, Les Demoiselles de Giverny features one of the most recognised motifs painted by Monet, that of the grainstacks, though in this instance, a collection of meulettes which are more loosely formed in appearance than the finished haystacks. Revisiting the subject in 1894, following the celebrated series of Haystacks he painted in 1890-91, uses the symbol of France’s rural health to continue his ground-breaking exploration of building up a canvas with paint. The work’s richly encrusted surface demonstrates Monet’s sculptural use of the medium looks ahead to the phenomenon of abstraction. The painting’s title, “The Young Ladies of Giverny”, takes its name from the colloquial French expression and evokes moving figures within a landscape, echoing the many occasions he had painted female figures set within the natural world in the 1870s.
Glaçons, environs de Bennecourt, estimated at £5 – 7 million, also shows Monet’s progression towards his water lily paintings of the 20th century. During late December 1892 and January 1893, the length of the Seine experienced severe frost and heavy snow. Capturing the ice floes on the river’s surface was a nascent flowering of the water lily paintings, which Monet would begin just a few years later.
Painted in 1897, Sur la falaise près de Dieppe, soleil couchant, estimated at £3.5 – 5 million, is from a series of works depicting the Normandy coast. The paintings were unusual in their choice of colours, as Monet uses a soft Mediterranean palette to paint the dramatic northern perimeter of France. Reducing nature’s forms to their essence with gestural brushwork represented Monet’s first forays into abstraction. By the time of his death, he had become an abstract painter in his own right, set to have a tremendous influence on the generation of artists who followed.
Completing the group is Prunes et Abricots, painted circa 1882-85 during a period when Monet’s output started to reach a wider audience and gain increasing recognition. In 1882, the legendary art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel had commissioned a series of decorative panels depicting flowers and fruit for the grand salon in his Paris apartment. While Prunes et abricots was not part of the final design, this charming still life, estimated at £1.2 – 1.8 million, was acquired by the dealer in 1890.