Sotheby’s New York Highlights Release September - December 2009 FINE CHINESE FURNITURE, WORKS OF ART AND CARPETS FROM THE ARTHUR M. SACKLER COLLECTIONS Exhibition opens: 11 September 16 September 2009 17
time in Berlin in 1923, just before he settled permanently in Paris. The painting combines the artist’s characteristic styles of portrait, interior and cityscape painting in a single, brilliant composition. Meanwhile, Boris Grigoriev’s Mother and Child is a recently rediscovered masterwork acquired directly from the artist and kept in a private European collection. The painting is one of only a small number of images the artist created of wife and son together, and its composition expressively captures the intimacy of their relationship (est. $500/700,000). The sale will also include a landscape entitled The Brook by Ivan Shishkin (est. $650/750,000) as well as a number of works by both Nicholas and Svetoslav Roerich, together with related ephemera from the 1920s and 1930s. A section of Fabergé and works of art is highlighted by a Rare Russian Award Portrait Miniature of Peter the Great surrounded by diamonds (est. $80/120,000, pictured here). As part of the new system of political patronage brought in by Peter, awards such as this were given to a very small number of subjects who had performed exceptional acts in service of the Tsar. Research currently suggests that the award of the portrait was an even greater honor than the Order of St. Andrew, which was given to around 38 people compared to the ten bejeweled portrait miniatures that were issued. Of these ten, only six are known to exist, with three in major Russian museum collections – the current miniature is the largest of these remaining awards.
IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN ART Exhibition opens: 30 October 4-5 November 2009
Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art will feature six works from the Collections of Dr. Arthur Sackler including a monumental canvas by Wassily Kandinsky, Krass und Mild (Dramatic and Mild), one of the greatest Bauhaus-period works to have appeared at auction in years (est. $6/8 million). Painted in May 1932, during Kandinsky's final months at the Bauhaus, the painting is a visual symphony of geometry and color. Krass und Mild was purchased by Dr. Sackler in Sotheby's
historic sale of Fifty Paintings by Wassily Kandinsky from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1964. The appearance of Krass und Mild on the market is particularly timely given the recent revival of interest in Kandinsky as a pivotal artist, evidenced by major shows in London, Paris and in New York this fall. Seven paintings from the Durand-Ruel Collection will also be offered, encompassing works by a number of the Impressionist masters that legendary art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922) represented: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley. All but one of these paintings were
acquired by Paul Durand-Ruel directly from the artists themselves, and all have remained in the family ever since. Renoir’s Femme au chapeau blanc belongs to a series of oils that Renoir completed in the early 1890s of young women wearing elaborately decorated chapeaux (est. $2.5/3.5 million). The evening sale will also include Pablo Picasso’s lively portrait of his son, Claude à Deux Ans et Son Cheval de
