Aristophil: Fourth Sale

Published on 08 April 2019, by Anne Doridou-Heim

Auction on 04 April 2019 - 14:00 (CEST) - 9, rue Drouot - 75009 Paris

With eight catalogues for seven auctions, the fourth session of sales of the Aristophil collection garnered €11 M, and continued to attract institutions, which made 45 pre-emptions.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), L.A.S., "BP", Milan headquarters, 28 Floréal IV (17... Aristophil: Fourth Sale

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), L.A.S., "BP", Milan headquarters, 28 Floréal IV (17 May 1796), to his wife Josephine, "La citoyenne Bonaparte rue Chanterelle {sic} no 6 Paris", one in-folio page, red wax stamp (broken, small marginal tear due to broken seal).
On 4 April, Drouot, OVA (Aristophil sales operator): Ader.
Result: €169,000

The fine arts featured first of all, and with €5,126,572, this spring sale was the section that obtained the highest total in this new session. It must be said that the names involved were particularly mouth-watering. The signature of Vincent Van Gogh turned up on a pencil drawing of 1890, a wall-enclosed wheat field: a corner of the enclosure behind the Hospice Saint-Paul. This is a very moving piece, as he drew it during his year-long stay at the psychiatric hospital (from 3 May 1889 to 16 May 1890), a period when he painted iconic pictures like "Starry Night" and "Irises". Pierre Auguste Renoir always asserted that admiring nature was the best thing an artist could do – as finely illustrated here with a "Femme en rose dans un paysage à Cagnes", rewarded with €494,000, and "Le Village de Cagnes vu de la terrasse des Collettes", which fetched €455,000. "Le Bassin" by Henri Martin garnered the highest bid of the day, €520,000 – thought this was nonetheless a far cry from the €929,400 needed to buy it at the…

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