Sotheby’s New York Highlights Release FINE EUROPEAN FURNITURE Exhibition opens: 27 March INCLUDING TAPESTRIES, SILVER, CERAMICS AND CARPETS 1 April 2010
Century Furniture include An Impressive Micromosaic Capriccio Plaque, Rome 1869, by Cavaliere Michelangelo Barberi, attributed to Barberi by Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel (est. $60/80,000). Barberi was the pre-eminent mosaicist in 19th century Europe, with a close relationship with the Russian Royal family and was granted commissions by Napoleon I. An Impressive and Large Italian Carved Giltwood and Pietre Dure Center Table, Florence, last quarter 19th century (est. $100/150,000) will also be featured. The sale will also include Auguste Moreau and Ferdinand Barbedienne’s Large Pair of Napoléon III Gilt and Patinated Bronze Figural Torchères, Paris, circa 1875-80 (est. $100/150,000). Auguste Moreau was part of a large family of sculptors including his father and two brothers. His two sons also became sculptors continuing the celebrated sculptural dynasty. Barbedienne was one of the most active and distinguished French bonziers of the late 19th century. The present lot, with imposing scale and charming and fluid design may have flanked a grand staircase in a large public or private entrance of a Hôtel Particulier or théatre. Among the silver works on offer is a selection of Viennese enamels, including pieces by Herman Ratzersdorfer and and Hermann Böhm. Also offered are an impressive Victorian parcel-gilt centerpiece by Elkington & Co., 1866, the design attributed to their head designer Auguste Adolphe Willms (est. $110/130,000) and a pair of early Victorian silver wine coolers, R. & S. Garrard, 1839, for George, 4th Earl of Clarendon, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs during the Crimean War (est. $100/150,000).
19TH CENTURY EUROPEAN ART Exhibition opens: 17 April
23 April 2010
Sotheby’s 23 April sale of 19th Century European Art features William Bouguereau’s monumental L’Amour et Psyché (est. $1.8/2.2 million). Painted in 1899, this work depicts the mythological lovers Cupid and Psyche en route to Cupid’s celestial home. Impressive in both its size and rarity, it represents the culmination of the illustrious career of one of France’s most popular and critically acclaimed painters. Also included in the sale is Bouguereau’s Amour à l’affût (est. $600/800,000)
featuring a much younger Cupid, innocently seated on a rock, yet mischievously drawing back his famous bow and arrow. In 1896, Bouguereau married Elizabeth Jane Gardner, and her ambitious painting The Farmer’s Daughter (est. $200/300,000) earned her a coveted medal at the Paris Salon, the only American woman to achieve such a distinction. Three works by Giovanni Boldini will also be featured: Ladies of the First Empire, painted in 1873 (est. $400/600,000), the recently discovered The Last Glance in the Mirror (est. $200/300,000), and a watercolor entitled In the Park (est. $80/120,000). Among the Orientalist works on offer is Rudolf Ernst’s Outside the Mosque (est. $500/700,000) which features Ernst’s characteristic barrage of textures and surfaces, as well as highly informative, exquisitely rendered records of specific garments and architectural details. John Frederick Lewis’s A Frank Encampment in the Desert of Mount Sinai, 1842 (est. $1/1.5 million) is a second, nearly identical version in oil of a watercolor by the artist deemed “among the
