Claude Bornet  (1733-1804), école de. Portrait de Madame Elisabeth (1764-1794). Travail du XIXe siècle. Photo Coutau-Begarie

Miniature sur ivoire, portant une signature sur la droite et la date : 1787. Réalisée d'après une œuvre légèrement similaire peinte par Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. Conservée sous verre bombé, dans un cadre en argent serti de marcassites, avec attache de suspension. H. : 8, 5 cm - L. : 6, 5 cm. Estimation : 2 000 / 2 500 €

Coutau-Begarie. Mercredi 17 octobre 2012. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 4 - 9, rue Drouot - 75009 Paris. Tel: 01 48 00 20 04

A Famille-Rose 'Twin Fish And Chime' Vase. Qing Dynasty, 18th Century - Photo Sotheby's

of baluster form supported on a splayed foot, the rounded sides rising to an angled shoulder and a waisted neck below an inverted rim, brightly decorated around the exterior in famille-rose enamels against a white ground with four large lotus blooms borne on foliate scrolls with attendant lotus and daylilies, each set below beribboned 'twin fish' suspending a pale green chime, finely detailed in shades of brown with gills and serrate fins, the neck further enamelled with four yellow and pink petalled flowers open in full bloom among feathery scrolls, below a border of florets and pink fleurs-de-lys at the rim, the foot skirted by upright multi-coloured lappets above sprays of florets and a raised iron-red foot painted with a gilt 'classic' scroll, the inside and base glazed in pale turquoise; 31 cm., 12 1/4 in. Estimation: 1,200,000 - 1,500,000 HKD - Unsold

PROVENANCE: A private English collection (by repute).

NOTE DE CATALOGUE: The symbolism of the design found on this finely decorated vase is especially auspicious. According to Teresa Tse Bartholomew in Hidden Meanings in Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 2006, p.185, the twin fish, while being one of the Eight Buddhist Emblems, also symbolize freedom from restraint and convey the message of 'may you be blessed with connubial bliss, fecundity and an abundance of good luck' (see ibid., p. 44). 

Vases decorated in a similar style, with finely painted lotus blooms and scroll in particularly vivid enamels against a white ground, can be found in different shapes; for example, see a Qianlong mark and period vase illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains with Cloisonne Enamel Decoration and Famille Rose Decoration, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 95; a famille-rose lantern vase sold in these rooms, 9th October 2008, lot 1504; and a pair of vases sold at Christie's New York, 15th September 2009, lot 467, of related tapering ovoid body but with handles on the neck and everted ruyi head-form rims.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Hong Kong | 09 oct. 2012 www.sothebys.com

Chaumet Ring in white gold set with a18.13 carat cabochon-cut white opal, diamanti, blue tourmaline and tanzanites. Biennale des Antiquaires 2012.

Sèvres. Service des Petites vues de France, pour le roi Louis-Philippe. Photo Coutau-Begarie

Travail de la Manufacture royale de Sèvres, marque en creux datée 1840, marque verte SV LP datée 1845, marque rouge de l'aigle impériale datée 1852. Assiette plate à décor central polychrome d'une vue de campagne avec marais et vaches, dans un médaillon cerné d'une frise grecque or, marli à fond bleu agate orné d'une frise de palmettes or, légendé en bas « Environs d'Evreux » en or en partie effacé. Bon état, légère restauration à l'aile. Diam. : 24 cm. Lot 171. Estimation : 2 000 / 2 500 €

Provenance : Cette assiette ayant une marque de décoration plus tardive que la précédente était destinée au service de l'empereur Napoléon III pour son palais de l'Elysée, qui n'était pas sa résidence principale mais « l'hôtellerie officielle des souverains en visite à Paris ». Plusieurs de ces assiettes sont restées à l'Elysée et sont parfois utilisées par le Président de la République lors de réceptions.

Coutau-Begarie. Mercredi 17 octobre 2012. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 4 - 9, rue Drouot - 75009 Paris. Tel: 01 48 00 20 04

A Pair of Famille-Rose Ruby-Ground Small Dishes. Blue Enamel Marks and Period of Yongzheng - Photo Sotheby's

the shallow rounded sides resting on a short slightly tapered foot, the exterior decorated with foliate sprays of chrysanthemum against a crushed-raspberry ground, the blooms detailed with white lobed petals and shaded in pale yellow at the centre, the leaves picked out in turquoise and pale green with darker veins, the interior left white, the bases inscribed with a blue enamel four-character mark within a double square; 9 cm., 3 1/2 in. Estimation: 1,000,000 - 1,500,000 HKD - Unsold

PROVENANCE: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 29th October 1991, lot 247.

NOTE DE CATALOGUE: Related dishes enamelled with this charming design, but of slightly larger dimensions, include one shown in the Special Exhibition of Ch’ing Dynasty Porcelain of the Imperial Ateliers, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1992, cat. no. 96; another sold in these rooms, 5th November 1996, lot 877, and again in our London rooms, 11th May 2011, lot 149; and a third sold in these rooms, 29th October 2001, lot 591, and again at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1st June 2011, lot 3649.

Compare Yongzheng mark and period dishes of this type but painted with various flora and fauna on coloured grounds, such as two depicting prunus blossoms included in the Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Ch'ing-dynasty Painted Enamels, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1984, cat. nos. 54 and 57, one on a blue ground, the other on a ruby ground; and a dish enamelled with bamboo on a lilac ground, in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., published in Hugh Moss, By Imperial Command. An Introduction to Ch’ing Imperial Painted Enamels, Hong Kong, 1976, pl. 57.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art. Hong Kong | 09 oct. 2012 www.sothebys.com

Marie-Antoinette, reine de France. Paire de rafraîchissoirs à verres. Travail du XIXe siècle dans le goût de la Manufacture de la Reine, rue Thiroux à Paris. Photo Coutau-Begarie

en porcelaine dure ornés du monogramme « MA » de la Reine sous couronne de fleurs, entouré de guirlandes, sur fond d'un semis de fleurs polychromes et surmonté de filets bleus et or. Les prises sont en forme de coquille. Bon état. H. : 11, 5 cm - L. : 14 cm. Estimation : 1 500 / 2 000 €

Provenance : Cette paire de rafraîchissoirs, provint de la collection de Mme Thévenin de Sède qui les prêta au château de Versailles, dans le cadre de l'exposition consacrée au bi-centenaire de la naissance de la reine, intitulée : « Marie-Antoinette, archiduchesse, dauphine et reine » en mai 1955, sous le numéro 1009 page 294. Tous les documents relatifs à cette exposition, dont une carte d'entrée permanente et une lettre de sortie signée de Gérald Van der Kemp, conservateur en chef du Musée de Versailles, seront remis à l'acquéreur.

Coutau-Begarie. Mercredi 17 octobre 2012. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 4 - 9, rue Drouot - 75009 Paris. Tel: 01 48 00 20 04

Chaumet Ring in white gold paved with diamonds and multicoloured sapphires, set with nine oval-cut pink spinels and one round-cut orange spinel. Biennale des Antiquaires 2012.

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1969. Acrylic on canvas, 81 x 93"© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist Rights Society, New York (ARS). Courtesy Pace Gallery.

LONDON.- Following its recent announcement of plans to open a major gallery in Mayfair, Pace London presents Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes at 6 Burlington Gardens from 4 October through 17 November 2012. The inaugural exhibition juxtaposes Mark Rothko's late black and grey paintings with Hiroshi Sugimoto’s contemporary photographs of bodies of water. The exhibition marks the first private gallery presentation of Rothko’s work in London in nearly fifty years and continues Pace’s five-decade tradition of exhibitions that explore affinities between artists working across decades and mediums. 

Dark Paintings and Seascapes pairs eight acrylic paintings by Rothko and eight gelatin silver prints by Sugimoto, revealing two different artistic approaches that arrive at similar conclusions. Rothko's use of medium as pure abstraction communes with the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto who, decades later, used the medium itself to reconsider photography's relationship to his viewers’ perception of the world. In addition to exploring the visual dialogue between Rothko’s dark paintings and Sugimoto’s photographs—both characterized by a binary format of black and grey rectangular elements—the pairings mine the philosophical affinities between the two artists, each offering a meditation on universal and cosmological concerns. 

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue by Richard Shiff, the Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art and director of the Center for the Study of Modernism at the University of Texas at Austin. “Rothko and Sugimoto think in terms of eras of history and eons of organic life, not the decades of their own lives,” Shiff writes. “Rothko had directed his art, as Sugimoto does now, to a primal, evolutionary sense of being human. What is true of Rothko and Sugimoto becomes true of all of us when we attend to their experience—if we encounter the limits of human feeling and perception that Rothko’s paintings and Sugimoto’s photographs represent. We then recognize the condition that already constitutes our living … Immersed in an artist’s sea of light—this aesthetic entry into nature, history, and other beings—we become aware of our conscious awareness.” 

The concept for the exhibition originated in 2010, when Hiroshi Sugimoto joined Pace and was introduced to Christopher Rothko, the son of Mark Rothko. Pace has worked with the Rothko family since 1978 and has presented ten exhibitions devoted to the history of the artist’s work. 

In preparation for the exhibition, Sugimoto reflected, “For several decades I have created seascapes. Not depicting the world in photographs, I’d like to think, but rather projecting my internal seascapes onto the canvas of the world. Skies now forming bright rectangles, water now melting into dark fluid rectangles. I sometimes think I see a dark horizon cutting across Mark Rothko’s paintings. It’s then I unconsciously realize that paintings are more truthful than photographs and photographs are more illusory than paintings.” 

Painted a year before his death, Rothko’s dark paintings of 1969 represented the first radical break from his signature form in over two decades. He abandoned both the orchestral range and shimmering banks of colour that had defined his earlier work, reducing each painting to two distinct rectangles, one dark and one lighter. Though Rothko had engaged with darkness before—notably in the Seagram paintings of 1958–59 and the commission for the Chapel at the Menil Collection in Houston from 1964–67—in the late work he limited his palette to black and grey, with traces of dark brown, maroon, and blue visible. The paintings are surrounded by a white margin, unique to this series, that isolates the field and emphasizes its flatness. 

Though sombre and even elegiac in colour and mood, the dark works relate less to any personal tragedy in Rothko’s life, and more to eternal and depersonalized metaphysical questions. As the critic Brian O’Doherty wrote in his 1985 catalogue essay for Pace’s exhibition of Rothko’s late paintings, “The works contracted to windows of some original darkness.” 

Sugimoto’s Seascapes (begun in 1980) depict bodies of water from the English Channel to the Bay of Sagami, each photographed in the same stark composition of a horizon line dividing the sky and sea. Divided into two rectangles—one dark, one light—the relationship between sea and sky takes on an almost abstract geometry that carries from image to image and ocean to ocean around the world. Like Rothko, Sugimoto conveys a startling range of emotions within a limited vocabulary of black and white tones and a fixed format. Focusing on water and air—the substances that gave rise to life—the works evoke primordial seas and the origins of human consciousness. 

Rothko/Sugimoto extends Pace’s ongoing series of two-artist exhibitions that initiate dialogues between artists working across time periods, geography, and mediums, following such significant exhibitions as de Kooning/Dubuffet: The Women (1990); Mondrian/Reinhardt: Influence and Affinity (1997); Bonnard/Rothko: Color and Light (1997); Willem de Kooning and John Chamberlain: Influence and Transformation (2001); Dubuffet and Basquiat: Personal Histories (2006); Josef Albers/Donald Judd: Color and Form (2007); and Ad Reinhardt and Tony Smith: A Dialogue (2008–9). 

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) was born in Dvinsk, Russia and immigrated to the United States in 1913. Widely considered one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, he studied painting at Yale University from 1921–23, and in 1969 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the school. Rothko has been the subject of six major surveys and retrospectives: the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1998), which traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; the Kawamura Memorial Art Museum, Japan, which traveled to three museums in Japan (1995–96); the Tate Gallery, London, which traveled to Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1987–88); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1978–79); and two exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1970 and 1961), with the 1961 retrospective travelling to London, Amsterdam, Basel, Rome, and Paris. Rothko’s work is held in the collections of museums including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; The Menil Collection, Houston; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Tate Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. 

Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948, Tokyo) has lived and worked in New York City since 1974. Preserving and picturing memory and time is a central theme of Sugimoto’s photography, including the ongoing series Dioramas (1976– ), Theaters (1978– ), and Seascapes (1980– ). The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, jointly organized a retrospective of the artist’s work that travelled to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; de Young museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Museum der Moderne, Salzburg; Neue Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; and Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland (2006–2009). Sugimoto has been the subject of solo exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, among others. In 2005, the Japan Society, New York, and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C., organized a North-American tour of Hiroshi Sugimoto: History of History, an exhibition curated by Sugimoto of his own personal collection of antiquities, which travelled to the Kanazawa 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Museum of Art, Japan. Sugimoto has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and is the recipient of the Praemium Imperiale Award (2009, 2010), the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (2001), and the International Center of Photography’s 15th Annual Infinity Award for Art, New York (1999). His work is held in numerous public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Musée national d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The National Gallery, London; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Smithsonian Institute of Art, Washington, D.C., and Tate Gallery, London.  

 Installation view of Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes, Pace London, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, October 4 through November 17, 2012 © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist Rights Society, New York (ARS). Courtesy Pace Gallery© Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace London

Installation view of 'Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes', Pace London, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, October 4 through November 17, 2012. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist Rights Society, New York (ARS). Courtesy Pace Gallery. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace London.

Installation view of 'Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes', Pace London, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, October 4 through November 17, 2012. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist Rights Society, New York (ARS). Courtesy Pace Gallery. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace London.

Installation view of 'Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes', Pace London, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, October 4 through November 17, 2012. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist Rights Society, New York (ARS). Courtesy Pace Gallery. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace London.

Installation view of 'Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes', Pace London, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, October 4 through November 17, 2012. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist Rights Society, New York (ARS). Courtesy Pace Gallery. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace London.

Installation view of 'Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes', Pace London, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, October 4 through November 17, 2012. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist Rights Society, New York (ARS). Courtesy Pace Gallery. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace London.

Installation view of 'Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes', Pace London, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, October 4 through November 17, 2012. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist Rights Society, New York (ARS). Courtesy Pace Gallery. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace London.

Installation view of 'Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes', Pace London, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, October 4 through November 17, 2012. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist Rights Society, New York (ARS). Courtesy Pace Gallery. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Pace Gallery. Photography courtesy Pace London. 

The Pierre Arpels watch pink gold, and diamonds.

GENEVA.- At Van Cleef & Arpels, each watch tells a story and the Pierre Arpels in particular is part of the Maison’s watchmaking heritage, just as the rarest stones are part of the Maison’s jewellery heritage.

Created especially for Pierre Arpels in 1949, the watch that carries his name has become a legend, the symbol of an elegance which is discreet and sophisticated.

The lines have stayed the same, but to celebrate the SIHH 2012, Van Cleef & Arpels presents a new, more contemporary, interpretation of this timepiece icon.

It is all about style, a sort of essential elegance: a beauty that is not flaunted but suggested. To understand this, all we have to do is observe Pierre Arpels in the opening scene of the French film “Fantômas”, shot in 1964. Van Cleef & Arpels agreed to lend the place Vendôme boutique for the filming of the first scene which is set at a prestigious jeweller’s. Pierre Arpels plays himself.

“A Rolls Royce stops at number 22, place Vendôme. A couple comes out: Lord and Lady Beltham. Behind the man’s aristocratic allure lies the famous thief, Fantômas, played by Jean Marais. The woman accompanying him is Marie-Hélène Arnaud, one of the most sought-after models of the 60s”.

“Pierre Arpels, impeccably attired, greets them. He kisses Lady Beltham’s hand with the perfect manners of a gentleman. He then discreetly leaves his clients in privacy to pick out a fabulous array of jewellery”.

The gesture is restrained and refined. It matches the man’s elegance. Every morning, Pierre Arpels chooses his suit, his tie, his shoes with the utmost care. For this man of the world, the search for harmony is essential. His clothes, his environment, his office giving out onto the place Vendôme, are all in step with his taste for quiet sophistication.

It is this spirit that led him to create, in 1949, the watch he had always dreamed of. Pierre Arpels is 30 years old and, after the dark years of World War II, he is no longer a carefree young man. Like many of his peers, he has learnt the importance of going straight to the essence of things and “his” watch is the symbol of this outlook on life. The ostentatious excesses of the 30s, of his youth, the extravagant aesthetics and superfluous details, are over.

A perfect circle
The watch he imagines is a perfect circle, the most ancient and fundamental of geometric figures. A perfect line with no beginning and no ending. In the Feng Shui philosophy, the circle is a heaven for the spirit, a place of wellbeing and spiritual peace.

The absence of the two lateral attachments that usually secure classic watch cases to their bracelets gives the impression that the circle is suspended in space. The only attachment is very thin and Pierre Arpels will make it even thinner, so that it practically disappears.

Located at the top and the bottom of the watch, it is similar to the Earth’s invisible central axis which crosses the planet’s core and runs from one pole to the other.

A pure line
Pierre Arpels is very sensitive to the arts, European and Asian, but his tastes favour simplicity above all. On the terrace of his Parisian apartment, situated on the top floor of a modern building, he has created a Japanese zen garden where he can contemplate the restrained harmony of its design.

He is constantly seeking out the balance of lines and shapes: if he had not become a jeweller, he would have been an architect. In each of his homes, in Paris or in the country, there is a studio where he can be alone to sketch, imagine and dream.

To him, beauty is what remains when the superfluous has been stripped away. And that is how he designs the dial of his watch. It is white, with a slightly matt finish. The two hands are represented by simple black batons. The Roman numeral hours are positioned on the circle of the dial with the utmost geometrical precision.

A thin case
A symbol of harmony and elegance, the Pierre Arpels watch is a very personal object, created only for him. He does not wish to display it like a trophy. For this impeccably mannered man, time must not dominate everyday life. He would consider it rude to be caught looking at the time during a moment spent with a client or a friend.

That is also one of the reasons he has designed an extra thin watch. It must sit discreetly under the cuff of his shirt; slide out as smoothly as possible, without ever catching on the material, so as to go unnoticed.

A watch for day and for night
Businessman, designer, traveller and sportsman… Pierre Arpels is all of these. In the summer, he lives on his yacht and shuttles between Monaco and Cannes, on the French Riviera where the Maison has its boutiques. The vacation season is a very busy one. From the beginning of the Cannes Film Festival to the Monaco Red Cross ball, these summer months are filled with intense activity.

His watch is the ideal companion for his active lifestyle. He wears it at the helm of his yacht. During the day, going from one boutique to the other, it stays on his wrist. In the evening, whether he is greeting actress Romy Schneider at the Film Festival, or Princess Grace at the Sporting Club in Monaco, his watch is always there, under the right-hand cuff of his evening shirt.

The occasion and the attire change, but the watch remains the same. Its white dial, yellow gold crown, discreet rounded attachment and black alligator bracelet are all that are needed to create the impression of perfect elegance, so valued by Pierre Arpels. It is the only objet to follow him from dawn till dusk.

With a slight reluctance, Pierre Arpels finally accepts to have his watch replicated for members of his family and a few close friends. In the end, it will be commercialised in 1971 under the name PA 49. Its fundamental lines will never be changed; the watch is part of the Maison Van Cleef & Arpels’ watchmaking heritage.

2012
The Pierre Arpels watch
More than 60 years since its creation, this watch has become a timekeeping icon. For the SIHH 2012, Van Cleef & Arpels offers a new interpretation, whose pure lines, although more contemporary, celebrate the original model and the spirit of its creator.

On the dial’s round surface, the hours are represented by Roman numerals in keeping with classic watchmaking tradition. They stand out with the same elegant simplicity as before.

The dial is still in white lacquer, but its centre has been adorned with a motif depicting both the Van Cleef & Arpels hallmark and the honeycomb pattern of a black-tie shirtfront.

Its new profile has been slightly bevelled, enhancing the watch’s discretion as it slips even more easily under the shirt cuff.

The extremely thin, rounded attachment, located at the top and bottom of the watch, is still present. Its simplicity accentuates the quiet elegance of the watch which sits so lightly on the wrist.

The bracelet is in patent black alligator skin, exactly as Pierre Arpels required. The innovation lies in the assembly of the leathers: they have been manually glued to each other so as to do away with visible stitching. 

Created especially for Pierre Arpels in 1949, the watch that carries his name has become a legend, the symbol of an elegance which is discreet and sophisticated.

NEW YORK - Picasso Black and White is the first exhibition to explore a remarkable focus that occupied the great Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, throughout his prolific career: the use of black and white. Few artists have exerted as considerable an influence over subsequent generations as Picasso, one of the most recognized figures in 20th-century art. While his work is often seen through the lens of his diverse styles and subjects—his Blue and Rose periods, pioneering investigations into Cubism, neoclassical figurative paintings, and explorations in Surrealism, for example, or the forceful and somber scenes depicting the atrocities of war, the allegorical still lifes, the vivid interpretations of arthistorical masterpieces, and the highly sexualized canvases of his twilight years—the recurrent motif of black, white, and gray is frequently overlooked.

The artist was continuously investigating, inventing, and drawing in these austere monochromatic tones. The graphic quality of these distinctive, black-and-white works harks back to the spare paintings of Paleolithic artists, who developed a primal visual language using charcoal and simple mineral pigments, and to grisaille and the European drawing tradition. But in adopting this restricted palette, Picasso was also faithful to a centuries-long Spanish tradition, following in the footsteps of earlier masters whose use of black was predominant, such as El Greco, José de Ribera, Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán, and Francisco de Goya, who made a series of black paintings in his old age, as Picasso did. Reported to have claimed that color “weakens,” Picasso purged color from his works in order to highlight their formal structure and autonomy. Spanning 1904 to 1971, this chronological survey includes 118 paintings and several sculptures and works on paper, and investigates Picasso’s contributions to the development of art in the 20th century.

On the rotunda floor, the majestic and emblematic bronze Woman with a Vase(summer 1933) and painted metal sculpture Woman with Outstretched Arms (1961) set the tone for the dichotomy and interplay of black and white throughout the exhibition, as do the sculptures on view in the High Gallery. A draftsman par excellence, Picasso paid particular attention to the outline of the figure and was using soft gray hues as early as spring 1904, in the iconic paintingWoman Ironing and in Man, Woman, and Child (fall 1906). His pioneering Cubist works are condensed to geometric and deconstructed components of austere gray tonal ranges, creating grids that animate the canvas, as black-and-white painting composed of sensual arabesques.

A series of works featuring recumbent women, nudes, and bathers is devoted to the artist’s muse Marie-Thérèse Walter. Many are rendered in grisaille, including Swimming Woman (1934), a commanding and somewhat ferocious painting that may presage the epic style of his masterpiece Guernica (1937), which can be seen in several important related works on view. Throughout World War II, in occupied Paris, Picasso created stark figures and reclining nudes, which convey a heightened interest in monochromatic shapes, forms, and volumes. During this time, he painted The Charnel House (Paris, 1944–45), a forbidding black-and-white canvas that records the brutal devastation of war. The minimal tones, graphic intensity, and dramatic contrasts of dark and light, reflected in Still Life with Blood Sausage (May 10, 1941) and so characteristic of Picasso’s most important paintings, convey a melancholic mood as the artist explores the universality of human suffering, death, and deprivation. In 1954, Picasso made a series of mostly black-and-white, stylized works of Sylvette David, a young woman symbolizing a new, sophisticated femininity.

Impressive black-and-white canvases figure among his most vibrant interpretations of art-historical masterpieces, including Reclining Nude (1942) and The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velázquez) (August 17, 1957), informed respectively by Goya and Velázquez, as well as The Women of Algiers (version L) (1955) and The Rape of the Sabines (1962), the former inspired by Eugène Delacroix and the latter by Nicolas Poussin. In his twilight years, Picasso did not shy away from depicting embracing couples, as seen in The Kiss (1969), and voluptuous nudes such as Seated Woman (Jacqueline) (1962); rather, this range of minimal colors renders the figures all the more alive and conscious of their sexual vitality.

Picasso’s repeated use of a black, white, and gray palette correlates his obsessive interest in line and form, the influence of drawing, his use of monochrome and tonal values, his complex language of pictorial and sculptural signs, and exercises in light and dark. Picasso Black and White presents an illuminating perspective on this lesser-known, but fascinating, aspect of his formidable body of work.

Head of a Horse, Sketch for Guernica (Tête de cheval, étude pour Guernica), Grands-Augustins, Paris, May 2, 1937. Oil on canvas, 65 x 92 cm. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Bequest of the artist© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Archivo fotográfico Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.

The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velázquez) (Les Ménines, vue d’ensemble, d’après Velázquez), La Californie, August 17, 1957. Oil on canvas, 194 x 260 cm. Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Gift of the artist, 1968© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Gassull Fotografia.

Mother with Dead Child II, Postscript to Guernica (Femme avec enfant mort II, Post-scriptum à Guernica), Grands-Augustins, Paris, September 26, 1937. Oil on canvas, 130 x 195 cm. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Bequest of the artist© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © Archivo fotográfico Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid.

Reclining Woman Reading (Femme couchée lisant), 1960. Oil on canvas, 130.2 x 196.2 cm. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase, The Benjamin J. Tillar Memorial Trust © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Tom Jenkins

Reclining Nude (Grand nu couché), Grands-Augustins, Paris, September 30, 1942. Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 195 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Museum Berggruen© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: bpk, Berlin/Nationalgalerie, Museum Berggruen, Staatliche Museen/Jens Ziehe/Art Resource, NY.

The Kiss (Le baiser), Mas Notre-Dame-de-Vie, Mougins, 1969. Oil on canvas, 97.2 x 130.2 cm. Private Collection© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: David Heald.

The Charnel House (Le charnier), Grands-Augustins, Paris, 1944–45. Oil and charcoal on canvas, 199.8 x 250.1 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mrs. Sam A. Lewisohn Bequest (by exchange), and Mrs. Marya Bernard Fund in memory of her husband Dr. Bernard Bernard, and anonymous funds, 1971© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY.

The Kitchen (La cuisine), Grands-Augustins, Paris, November 9, 1948. Oil on canvas, 175.3 x 250 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Acquired through the Nelson A. Rockefeller Bequest, 1980© 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, NY.

Pablo Picasso in front of The Kitchen (La cuisine, 1948) in his rue des Grands-Augustins studio. Photo: Herbert List/Magnum Photos.

Imperial jade and diamond brooch by David Lin Jades

Exceptionnelle plaque en micro-mosaïque représentant un paysage de ruines à l'antique, animé d'un petit personnage. Fin du XVIIIe, début du XIXe siècle. Photo Tajan

Ce qui est fort rare, c'est que les pièces de la micro-mosaïque affectent des formes qui sont celles des branches ou des feuilles représentées. Elle est montée sur un fond de laiton ou de cuivre. (Dans un écrin). Haut. 3,9 cm - Larg. 6,2 cm - Estimation : 4 000 / 6 000 €

Tajan. Vendredi 19 octobre 2012. Drouot Richelieu - 9, rue Drouot - 75009 Paris www.tajan.com

Mt Fuji landscape brooch, Bulgari, diamonds, mother of pearl sky, enamel.

Rare miroir en bois doré. Travail italien probablement Florence, Fin du XVIIe siècle. Photo Tajan

sculpté de coquilles et guirlandes de feuilles de laurier et d'une riche sculpture de volutes ajourées et entrelacs de feuilles d'acanthe. (Manques - on joint quelques éléments détachés). Haut. 163 cm - Larg. 105 cm - Estimation : 3 500 / 5 000 €

Tajan. Vendredi 19 octobre 2012. Drouot Richelieu - 9, rue Drouot - 75009 Paris www.tajan.com

Multi-coloured gemstone brooch by Akiva Gil

Écorché. Toile enduite peinte et résine. Milieu du XXe siècle. Signé Auzoux. Photo Tajan

(Accidents, manques et réparations au bras droit, manque le poumon droit). DIM. À vue : 150 cm. On y joint un deuxième poumon gauche. Estimation : 3 000 / 5 000 €

Les écorchés du docteur Auzoux (1797-1880)
ont permis dès la première moitié du XIXe siècle de former des générations de médecins.
En 1822 il présente son premier modèle à l'Académie Royale de médecine et dès 1824 il reçoit sa première commande officielle émanant du Ministère de l'Intérieur.
Le succès sera rapidement au rendez-vous, et dans le monde entier des commandes seront passées pour obtenir ses fabrications en carton moulé peint avec une grande précision.

Ainsi aussi bien le Roi d'Angleterre, que le Tsar de Russie et même le Pape vont recevoir le brillant docteur Auzoux et lui commander « son homme classique ».
La fabrication de ces écorchés se poursuivra au XXe siècle, aujourd'hui un musée de l'anatomie à Neubourg présente les collections de l'ancien établissement Auzoux.

Tajan. Vendredi 19 octobre 2012. Drouot Richelieu - 9, rue Drouot - 75009 Paris www.tajan.com

Fantasy fish brooch in sapphires, pearls, diamonds, and gold by Autore.

Deux émaux formant pendants peints en grisaille. XVIIe siècle. Photo Tajan

L'un représente Hercule et les serpents, l'autre Nexus enlevant une nymphe. Haut. 7,5 cm - Long. 15,5 cm - Estimation : 2 200 / 3 000 €

Tajan. Vendredi 19 octobre 2012. Drouot Richelieu - 9, rue Drouot - 75009 Paris www.tajan.com

Ruby and diamond brooch by Rina Limor

A fascinating sculpture of a Buddhist disciple. Estimate: £200,000 to £300,000. Photo: Bonhams.

LONDON.- Bonhams will offer this fascinating sculpture of a Buddhist disciple for £200,000 to £300,000 in its sale of Fine Chinese Art on November 8 in London.

The interest in the piece itself is enhanced by its connection to the great French collector, Léonce Filatriau. Born in Pondichéry, India, in 1875, he went on to a political career that took him from India to Dahomey in French West Africa and then Indochina (Viet Nam). During his 35 years spent in the Far East, Léonce Filatriau patiently built up an imposing collection of Chinese art objects, including this rare Tang Dynasty marble figure, which was the highlight of his collection.

The marble figure of the Buddhist disciple, probably Ananda, is remarkable for its documentary inscription incised on the reverse of the pedestal, which may be translated as 'Made respectfully on the 12th day of the 4th month of the 5th year of the Kaiyuan era in the Great Tang' corresponding to 718 AD, during the reign of the Xuanzong Emperor. The marble figure is exceptionally sculpted, successfully rendering a peaceful and contemplative expression, and the elegant and finely sculpted lines of the robe fall in waves at the front over the undergarment which is secured by a knot at the chest and draped over the arms in a realistic manner. The figure is sculpted with the left hand raised in abhaya mudra and the right hand in varada mudra holding a rosary.

The Tang Dynasty Emperors used all three major beliefs – Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism - to secure popular support for their dynasty and in so doing reinforced the close association of sculpture and state.

The present extremely rare marble figure of a disciple belongs to the Buddhist category and resembles in its modelling a monumental limestone figure of a disciple, Tang Dynasty, from the Fengxian temple, Longmen, in Henan province.

Returning to France in 1932, after the premature death of his wife Marie-Blanche (1927), Léonce Filatriau decided to put his collection up for auction in 1936. This event was covered in the well known French newspaper Les Figaro on October 1936 in an article titled Vente D'Une Imposante et Magnifique Collection Chinois. His dearest wish was to return to the Far East in order to spend his retirement building a collection even more exquisite than his previous one. However, due to the outbreak of the Second World War he was not able to fulfil his dream. He died on 1 March 1943 in Paris, aged 68.