The Jacqueline Matisse collection achieved €40 million at Christie’s

The Jacqueline Matisse collection achieved €40 million at Christie’s

Led -how could it be otherwise- by works by Henri Matisse, the Jaqueline Matisse Monnier collection achieved a total of €40 million ($43.5 million) at Christie’s Paris.

Image: Henri Matisse, “Nymphe et faune rouge,” 1939. oil and crayon Conté on canvas, 50 x 61 cm.

Died last year, artist Jackie Matisse, known as Jaqueline Matisse Monnier, was the daughter of art dealer Pierre Matisse and thus the granddaughter of Henri Matisse, one of the key figures in 20th century painting. Christie’s auction included 78 works of art, featuring artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Marcel Duchamp and, of course, Henri Matisse.

It was precisely two works by the latter that fetched the highest prices of the auction. Painted in 1939, “Nymphe et faune rouge” is a small but intense work in which Matisse recovers the theme of fauns and nymphs, which he had begun in his magnificent “Le Bonheur de Vivre” (1905–06), perhaps the crowning work of Fauvism. The painting, which had a pre-sale estimate of between €1.8 million and €2.2 million, was auctioned for €5.2 million.

Another similar success was that of “Océanie, le ciel”, a silkscreen on linen created in 1946, of which there are several copies, one of them in the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The Jaqueline Matisse Monnier collection included two examples, both with an estimated pre-sale price of between €1.2 million and €1.8 million, which were auctioned for €4 million and €2.1 million, respectively.

“Petit buste d’homme”, a small sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, could not repeat the success of the previous works, and was auctioned for €3 million (its most pessimistic pre-sale estimate). In contrast, two other plaster and terracotta pieces by Giacometti, valued at around €200,000, exceeded €750,000. “Porte-manteau au hibou,” a work by Diego Giacometti -Alberto’s younger brother- was auctioned for €2.2 million, nearly four times its presale estimate.

“Monochrome bleu sans titre, (IKB 183)” by Yves Klein achieved €2.9 million, almost double its most pessimistic presale estimate. In contrast to the monochrome of the previous work, one of the auction’s most colorful works, Jean Paul Riopelle’s “P.M.12”, was one of the big surprises, auctioning for €567,000, about 10 times its presale estimate. #2022 #ArtMarket #HenriMatisse #theartwolf