A Painter, Émile Friant, and his Loyal Model…

Émile Friant (1863-1932) has decidedly brought luck to the Binoche & Giquello auction house. Already on 29 November 2019, an 1890 pastel of a pretty milliner (63 x 46.5 cm) soared up to €324,030, thereby garnering its creator a world record for a work on paper. At the same sale, the Portrait de Madame Gustave Paul (54.5 x 45 cm), an oil on canvas of 1888, seated at a piano for €122,360. Eleven years later, we once again find this elegant woman, married to a Nancy notary who clearly loved art and was also the artist's faithful supporter. Loyal and grateful, Friant depicted her features here in a more tightly framed portrait. The model, wrapped in a fur coat and wearing a feathered hat held on by a transparent veil typical of the 1900 look (the painting is dated 1899), gained a first name, Marguerite, and had not aged a day. This time, it took €126,224 to possess the painting. It's clear that the market is still as keen as ever on the style of this Lorraine painter, many of whose works are now in the Musée des Beaux-arts de Nancy.
The afternoon started with a charcoal drawing by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), another artist loyal to his favourite models: anonymous women whom he enabled to achieve posterity. A Woman Ironing (42 x 30.5 cm) drawn in around 1873, a sketch for a work now in the New York Metropolitan Museum, reaped €122,360 for her toil at the ironing board. This was followed by the preemption by the Musée Louis-Philippe at the Château d'Eu of a painting attributed to Auguste-Jean-Baptiste Vinchon (1789-1855). Borne off for €14,168, this depicts Le Baptême de Son Altesse royale le comte de Paris, le 2 mai 1841, à Notre-Dame (28 x 45 cm). The subject was clearly made for this Norman museum, which is always looking to add to its collections through the auction market.