Christie’s is delighted to present three outstanding works by Nicolas de Staël. Widely regarded as one of the most important painters of the 1950s, his thickly-impastoed visions of the world around him played a pivotal role in the European post-War artistic landscape. Within a tragically short career spanning around 15 years, de Staël developed a unique idiom caught between abstract and figurative registers. Remaining conceptually independent from contemporary developments such as Abstract Expressionism and Tachisme, his works are defined by their juxtaposed slabs of colour, which seek to animate their subject through tensions in tone, form and texture. The present selection includes two paintings from 1952: de Staël’s annus mirabilis, which saw his palette assume new levels of vibrancy. Bouteilles stands among the largest and finest in the artist’s series of still-life bottles produced that year, whilst Les Footballeurs (Parc des Princes) stems from his celebrated cycle of twenty-five ‘footballer’ paintings. The trio is completed by Barques dans le port of 1955: one of the final paintings completed before his untimely death that year. Depicting the port of Antibes, where the artist latterly occupied a studio, its provenance bears witness to his lasting friendship with his dealer Jacques Dubourg, who would become the recipient of de Staël’s final letter just months later.

Born in St Petersburg in 1914 to an aristocratic family and forced to flee Russia after the Bolshevik revolution, de Staël had led an itinerant existence from a young age. Early travels encompassed Holland, where he discovered Vermeer, Hals and Rembrandt, and France, where he became aware of Cézanne, Matisse, Soutine and Braque – the latter of whom would later become a friend. By the time de Staël settled in Paris in 1938, he had received a thorough education in art history. Friendships with members of the Parisian avant-garde, including Sonia Delaunay, Le Corbusier and Jean Arp, encouraged his tendencies towards abstraction. Gradually he began to develop his singular technique of creating heavily built-up surfaces, often by applying oil paint with a palette knife. By the late 1940s he had consolidated his use of these thick planes and facets of colour, which allowed him to reconcile his respect for European old masters with the progressive ideals of his generation. Having made the leap to totally abstract painting, he began to re-incorporate figuration into his works in the early 1950s – a move that dismayed some European critics, but was greeted with skyrocketing success in America. De Staël felt that his compositions had to make intuitive sense, balancing the abstract and the figurative with natural poise. ‘One moves from a line, from a delicate stroke, to a point, to a patch ... just as one moves from a twig to a trunk of a tree’, he wrote in 1955. ‘But everything must hold together, everything must be in place’ (N. de Staël, quoted in R. van Gindertaël, Cimaise, no. 7, June 1955, pp. 3-8). This conviction has defined his global legacy, and is eloquently expressed in the present three canvases.

Lot 33. Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955), Bouteilles (Bottles), signed 'Staël' (lower left), oil on canvas, 36 ¼ x 28 ½in. (92 x 72.4cm.) Painted in 1952. Estimate: £1,800,000 - £2,500,000. Price realised £4,519,250© Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Provenance: Jacques Dubourg, Paris.
Private Collection, Nantes.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2011.

Literature: G. Dumur, 'Nicolas de Stael', in Cahiers d'art, no. 27, Paris 1952 (illustrated, p. 213).
R. V. Gindertael, Stael, Paris 1960, pl. 6 (illustrated in colour, n.p.).
J. Guichard-Meili, Nicolas de Stae¨l paintings, Paris 1966, pl. 9 (illustrated in colour).
J. Dubourg & F. de Staël, Nicolas de Staël, catalogue raisonné des peintures, Paris 1968, no. 421 (illustrated, p. 201).
N. de Stae¨l and J. Dubourg, Lettres a' Jacques Dubourg, London 1981, unpaged.
F. de Staël, Nicolas de Staël, Catalogue Raisonné de L’oeuvre Peint, Neucha^tel 1997, no. 351 (illustrated in colour, p. 327).

Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Jacques Dubourg, Hommage à Nicolas de Staël, 1957, no. 13.

Note: ‘A world, de Staël’s world, caught in the painting of a jug, a bottle, a piece of masonry, a landscape, a tree, an event, a nude, a portrait: whatever his subject, the fascination is complete and inescapable’ –Lucia Moholy

Featured in a stellar range of international exhibitions over the past six decades – including Nicolas de Staël: Retrospective de l’oeuvre peint at the Fondation Maeght in 1991, for which it was the catalogue’s cover image, and the major 2003 retrospective at the Centre Georges Pompidou – Bouteilles is a magnificent work dating from Nicolas de Staël’s annus mirabilis of 1952. It is among the largest and most vibrant of a number of still-lifes depicting bottles he made during that year, which also includes Les Bouteilles, now in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. In Bouteilles, five bottles in pale grey, cobalt blue and white emerge from a blazing surface of ochre, coral, ultramarine, vermillion and turquoise. Chromatic contrasts are deployed with an expert eye, heightening each hue to Fauvist levels of intensity; the greys glow like embers within a warm aura of red, while blues and oranges turn each other up to near-tropical radiance. A glimpsed underlying ground of khaki green unites the whole. De Staël has applied his paint liberally with a palette-knife, creating near-sculptural layers of impasto. The painting shifts before our eyes: it appears at once as a figurative composition and as an abstract inferno of gestural expression, the schematic bottles dissolving into a maelstrom worthy of Willem de Kooning. This majestic consolidation of abstract and figurative modes is typical of de Staël’s works of 1952, in which he fully realised his unique painterly language. In its astonishing vibrancy and assurance, Bouteilles stands as an exceptional work from the artist’s greatest period.

Jean-Louis Prat, curator of de Staël’s 1991 retrospective at the Fondation Maeght, singled out Bouteilles as illustrative of his achievements as a colourist. ‘Bernard Dorival’, he wrote, ‘has already rightly emphasised what made the turning point of the year 1952: less a return to the figure than a burst of colour, which he thinks was determined by a visit to the exhibition dedicated to the Fauves at the Musée de l’art moderne. His analysis could serve aptly to describe this picture: “the most violent reds ... start to be neighboured ... with ultramarine and Prussian blues, with yellows and oranges ... Rarely has a colourist pushed chromatic daring further, an audacity all the more reckless in its laying down of these vehement tones in vast expanses, united at their highest pitch.” If the famous greys of Nicolas de Staël survive in this canvas, they are no longer dominant, and content themselves with defining three bottles. Exalted by the pure colours, they take on nuances of pearl, or of precious mother-of-pearl. Like jewels, they are set within another colour, surrounded by a halo of the red which pervades the composition and is elsewhere set against a green, just as the blue adjoins a beach of ochre. De Staël seems to be assaulting the very essentials of colour contrasts. In fact, a careful look shows that the old game of superposition has not disappeared and the colour of the background, which resurfaces in places throughout the painting as so many reminders, furthers the unification of harmony’ (J-L. Prat, Nicolas de Staël: Retrospective de l’oeuvre peint, exh. cat. Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1991, p. 114).

A turning point in de Staël’s journey towards works like Bouteilles was the large-scale canvas Toits (Roofs) (1951- 52, Centre Georges Pompidou), which displays a faceted, mosaic-like landscape of blacks and greys beneath an upper half suggestive of the sky. Moving away from the pure abstraction of previous works, which were often simply titled Composition, the denotative title Toits opened the work up for a figurative reading. Already, de Staël was making intelligent use of layered colour: warm, yellowish tones offset cooler blue-greys, while one dark ‘roof’ has a red surround similar to those that halo the bottles in the present work. In works like Bouteilles, however, de Staël treated his tones with far greater boldness. Aside from the Fauvist influence imputed by Dorival, the newly incandescent colours of de Staël’s work were heavily informed by his travels through the Bormes region of the south of France in the summer of 1952, where he was astounded by the transformative dazzle of the sunlight. This environment would also lead to his great Mediterranean landscape paintings, which are among the most celebrated works of his career. For de Staël, communicating the impact of the visible world upon the senses was key. His paintings aimed for no extrapictorial meaning: the objects in his still-lifes are never symbolic in their significance, but act as vehicles for visual exploration, rather like Cézanne’s apples. Works like Bouteilles, in their luminous passion for the pure act of seeing, attain a vital force that sets them apart from the abstract-figurative debates of de Staël’s time, and can be better seen as descended from a metaphysical or even Romantic sensibility. As Denys Sutton wrote in 1952, ‘de Staël established in these works his faith in a tangible work, nourished by light. He created “views” that exist in that light haze or semi-darkness that appears when reality and dream come together, or in the mysterious but alert peace of a snowbound world. These are paintings that elevate the spirit to mountainous peaks’ (D. Sutton, Nicolas de Staël, exh. cat. Matthiessen Gallery, London 1952, n.p.).

Bern, Kunsthalle Bern, Nicolas de Staël, 1957, no. 41.
Paris, Galerie de Messine, Nicolas de Staël, 1969.
Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, Nicolas de Staël: Rétrospective de l’oeuvre peint, 1991, p. 114, no. 33 (illustrated in colour on the cover; illustrated in colour, p. 115). This exhibition later travelled to Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
Tokyo, Tobu Museum of Art, Nicolas de Staël, 1993, p. 78, no. 24 (illustrated in colour, p. 79). This exhibition later travelled to Kamakura, Museum of Modern Art and Hiroshima, Museum of Art. 
Paris, Le Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Nicolas deStaël, 2003, p. 245, no. 94 (illustrated in colour, p. 132).
Martigny, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Nicolas de Staël 1945-1955, 2010, p. 261, no. 19 (illustrated in colour, p. 99).

Lot 34. Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955), Barques dans le Port (Boats in the Harbour), signed ‘Staël’ (lower left), oil on canvas; 28¾ x 39¼in. (73 x 99.7cm.) Painted in 1955. Estimate: £1,400,000 - £1,900,000. Price realised £2,411,250. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Provenance: Jacques Dubourg, Paris.
Private Collection, Paris (thence by descent)
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Literature: J. Dubourg and F. de Staël (eds.), Nicolas de Staël: Catalogue raisonné des peintures, Paris 1968, no. 1041 (illustrated, p. 384).
C. Zervos, ‘Nicolas de Staël’, in Cahiers d’Art, no. 30, 1955, (illustrated, p. 272).
P. Granville, ‘Nicolas de Staël, le déroulement de son oeuvre témoigne d’un destin libre et nécéssaire’, in Connaissance des Arts, no. 160, June 1965 (illustrated in colour, p. 97).
B. Dorival, ‘Un homme libre: Nicolas de Staël’, in XXe Siecle, no. 39, December 1972 (illustrated, p. 37).
D. Marchesseau, ‘Nicolas de Staël… jusqu’au bout de soi’, in Jardin des Arts, no. 212–213, July–August 1972 (illustrated, p. 15).
G. Dumur, Nicolas de Staël, Paris 1975 (illustrated in colour, p. 82).
F. de Staël, Nicolas de Staël Catalogue Raisonné de l’Oeuvre Peint, Neuchâtel 1997, no. 1068 (illustrated, p. 632).

Exhibited: Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Nicolas de Staël 1914–1955, 1956, p. 24, no. 87. 
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Nicolas de Staël 1914–1955, 1956, p. 21, no. 42 (illustrated in colour, unpaged).
Berne, Kunsthalle Bern, Nicolas de Staël, 1957, no. 79.
Geneva, Galerie Motte, Nicolas de Staël (1914–1955): Peintures et dessins, 1967, p. 26, no. 41 (illustrated, p. 29).
Paris, Jacques Dubourg, Hommage á Nicolas de Staël, 1969, no. 20.
Saint-Paul, Fondation Maeght, Staël, 1972, p. 162, no. 96 (illustrated in colour, p. 144).
Zurich, Galerie Nathan, Nicolas de Staël, Gemälde und Zeichnungen, 1976–1977, no. 24 (illustrated in colour, unpaged).
Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Nicolas de Staël, 1981, no. 112 (illustrated in colour, p. 132). This exhibition later travelled to London, Tate Gallery.
Saint-Paul, Fondation Maeght, Nicolas de Staël: Rétrospective de l'oeuvre peint, 1991, pp. 166 and 203, no. 84 (illustrated in colour, p. 167). This exhibition later travelled to Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (illustrated in colour, p. 169).

Note: ‘On the ramparts of Antibes, the workshop where he settled down to work in September of 1954 overlooks the sea, where he would go to contemplate infinity while marvelling at the massive solitary silhouette of the square fortress built by Vauban above the port’ –Germain Viatte

Lot 35. Nicolas de Staël (1914-1955), Les Footballeurs (Parc des Princes), signed 'Staël' (upper left); signed and dated 'Staël 52' (on the reverse), oil on masonite, 22 ½ x 30 3/8in. (57 x 77.2cm.) Executed in 1952. Estimate: £2,000,000 - £3,000,000. Price realised £2,891,250. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Provenance: Theodore Schempp/ M. Knoedler and Co., New York.
Lee A. Ault, New York (acquired from the above in 1953).
Mr and Mrs Burton Tremaine, New York (acquired from the above in 1956). 
Galleria Galatea, Turin.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1972.

Literature: M. Seuphor, La Peinture abstraite sa geneses son expansion, Paris 1962, no. 183 (illustrated in colour with incorrect orientation, p. 130).
J. Dubourg and F. de Staël, Nicolas de Staël: catalogue raisonné de peintures, Paris 1968, no. 403 (illustrated with incorrect dimensions, p. 197).
F. de Staël, Nicolas de Staël: catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre Peint, Neuchâtel 1997, no. 419 (illustrated with incorrect dimensions, p. 352).

Exhibited: New York, M. Knoedler and Co., Nicolas de Staël: Paintings, Drawings and Lithographs, 1953, no. 33.

Note: ‘His entire studio was cluttered with drafts of all sizes, inspired by this spectacle: here the captain of the French team, there the parade of players on the pitch, there the extraordinary scissor-kick of a player almost falling; everything, as if aflame, in chords of blue and red, skies, men articulated violently, localised and general movement, greens, yellows, a kind of “conquest of the air”’ –Pierre Lecuire

A jewel-like vision of colour and movement, Les Footballeurs (Parc des Princes) (1952) is a scintillating work from one of the great moments of Nicolas de Staël’s career. It has been held in the same private collection for over forty years. On 26 March 1952, de Staël and his wife watched a historic football match between France and Sweden at Paris’s Parc des Princes stadium. Enthused by this spectacle of athletic vigour and saturated, floodlit colour, the artist immediately embarked on a series of twenty-five ‘footballer’ paintings. This particular work bears exceptional provenance: it was shown in de Staël’s acclaimed first New York solo show at Knoedler & Co. in 1953, and later owned by the influential New York collectors Emily and Burton Tremaine. Other works from the series are held in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Musée des Beaux Arts, Dijon; the Fort Worth Art Museum, Texas; and the Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny. Employing his signature thick facets of oil paint, de Staël created bright, dynamic compositions that straddled the abstract and the figurative, reflecting the influence of Paolo Uccello’s The Battle of San Romano (c. 1438-40) – which he had seen in London’s National Gallery a few months previously – as much as of the abstraction of Parisian avant-gardists such as Matisse, whose collaged works like The Snail (1953) share in the bold, angular planes of de Staël’s painting. Les Footballeurs (Parc des Princes) employs a rhythmic counterpoint of blue, red, white and black palette-knife strokes to conjure a throng of players upon a deep green pitch, gathered around a sun-like yellow ball at the centre. Touches of black convey arms and legs poised mid-action; set against a swathe of darkness above, the striking contrast of the blacks, whites, reds and blues makes the floodlit drama of the stadium palpable. De Staël captures his scene with stunning economy and clarity, uniting the vivid excitement of the beautiful game with the physical and chromatic thrills of painting itself.

Writing to his friend René Char a fortnight after the match, de Staël’s exhilaration remained at fever pitch. ‘My dear René, Thank you for your note, you are an angel, just like the boys who play in the Parc des Princes each evening … I think of you often. When you come back we will go and watch some matches together. It’s absolutely marvellous. No one there is playing to win, except in rare moments of nervousness which cut you to the quick. Between sky and earth, on the red or blue grass, an acrobatic tonne of muscles flies in abandon, forgetting itself entirely in the paradoxical concentration that this requires. What joy! René, what joy! Anyway, I’ve put the whole French and Swedish teams to work, and some progress starts to be made. If I were to find a space as big as the Rue Gauguet, I would set off on two hundred small canvases so that their colour could sing like the posters on the motorway out of Paris’ (N. de Staël, Letter to René Char, 10 April 1952, quoted in F. de Staël, ed., Nicolas de Staël: Catalogue Raisonnéde l’Oeuvre Peint, Neuchâtel 1997, p. 975). It was clearly not just the tumult of energetic motion and blazing hues that delighted him, but also the heroic action of the players, who enter a Zen-like state of self-abandon and total presence when immersed in the game. Just such a paradoxical poise can be said to characterise de Staël’s painting, which at once depicts a figurative subject and attains a new, musical dimension through the dance of flat shapes that make up its surface. ‘I do not set up abstract painting in opposition to figurative’, he once explained. ‘A painting should be both abstract and figurative: abstract to the extent that it is a flat surface, figurative to the extent that it is a representation of space’ (N. de Staël, quoted in Nicolas de Staël in America, exh. cat. The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. 1990, p. 22). De Staël had been developing this approach since 1949, moving away from total abstraction; works like Les Footballeurs (Parc des Princes), which transposes the speed, muscle and colour of the football match into a mosaic-like tableau of interacting abstract forms and tones, mark its brilliant culmination.

De Staël’s insistence on figurative subject matter was met with some consternation in Europe, where figuration was seen as outmoded. Upon his first American solo exhibition at Knoedler & Co. in 1953, however, the artist found a warmer reception. Less concerned than French viewers with the abstraction-figuration dilemma – a formal debate which held scant interest for de Staël himself – the audience in New York responded to the powerfully-expressed emotion of his works. Shown alongside such major 1952 paintings as Le Parc de Sceaux (Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C) and Figures au bord de la mer (Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf), Les Footballeurs (Parc des Princes) was part of a display of de Staël’s work at its very best. Reviews were plentiful and positive, and the show a huge commercial success. ‘In Europe today’, reported Time magazine, ‘de Staël is ranked among the most important “young” artists. Manhattan critics, pleased to have something really new to write about, trowelled on the praise. “Majestic”, said the Times. Said Art News: “One of the few painters to emerge from postwar Paris with something to say, and a way of saying it with authority.” Manhattan buyers were just as complimentary in a more practical way; by week’s end the show was a near sellout’ (‘Say it with Slabs’, Time, 30 March 1953, p. 68). Attaining a unique compression of passionate vitality and pure pictorial power, Les Footballeurs (Parc des Princes) is an icon of this triumphant peak of de Staël’s practice. 

Christie's. Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 6 March 2019

Lot 28. Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Concetto spaziale, Attese, signed, titled and inscribed ‘l. Fontana “Concetto spaziale” “Attese” 1+1-XYZZA’ (on the reverse), waterpaint on canvas, 35¼ x 45 7/8in. (89.5 x 116.5cm.) Executed in 1960. Estimate: £2,000,000 - £3,000,000. Price realised £2,291,250. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Provenance: Galleria Arco d’Alibert, Rome. 
Paolo Nazzaro Collection, Rome.
Bernard Cats, Brussels. 
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2005. 

Literature: E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Generale, vol. I, Milan 1986, no. 60 T 117 (illustrated, p. 333). 
E. Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Ragionato de Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, tomo I, Milan 2006, no. 60 T 117 (illustrated, p. 502). 

Exhibited: Roma, Palazzo delle Exposizioni, X Quadriennale: 2. Situazione dll'arte non figurativa, 1973. 

Note: ‘I have invented a formula that I think I cannot perfect. I succeeded in giving those looking at my work a sense of spatial calm, of cosmic rigor, of serenity with regard to the infinite. Further than this I could not go’ –Lucio Fontana

Spanning over a metre in width, Concetto spaziale, Attese (1960) is a spectacular early example of Lucio Fontana’s tagli or ‘cuts’, which the artist began making in late 1958 and would dominate the triumphant final decade of his practice. The tagli were a philosophical gesture, and creative rather than destructive: in cutting the canvas open, Fontana transcended centuries of picture-plane-bound art history to reveal the infinity of space beyond, in which he saw the limitless future of mankind in the ‘spatial era.’ Having first pierced the canvas with buchi (‘holes’) in 1954, Fontana spent some years experimenting with surface ornamentation including glass fragments, impastoed paint and glitter before arriving at the serenity of the monochrome tagli, which constitute the refined apex of his adventurous, constantly evolving formal vocabulary. Its beguiling pure white surface incised with a quartet of vertical incisions, the present work stands among the most inventive early examples within the series. The cuts alternate in a paired dance between greater and shorter lengths, brought to life by their supple, curving motion. This balletic, near-calligraphic arrangement is distinguished by its powerful rhythmic character, exemplifying the drama and elegance with which Fontana deployed his conceptual innovation.

Although he experimented with a wide range of hues in his works, white was Fontana’s ultimate colour of choice for the tagli. Towards the end of his life, he was awarded the Grand Prize at the 1966 Venice Biennale for an installation of twenty white canvases potent in their simplicity, each presenting a single vertical incision down the centre. Creating a stark, pristine contrast with the abyssal blackness of his cuts, white also represented for Fontana a ‘ground zero’ that could open up previously unimagined freedoms, ideas and potentials in the postwar era. Works like the present, their slashed surfaces opening up the fourth dimension in spiritual union with the astronauts who were making bold new steps into space, offer an optimistic vision of man’s potential in the unfolding infinity of the universe. ‘When I sit down to contemplate one of my cuts, I sense all at once an enlargement of the spirit,’ Fontana said. ‘I feel like a man freed from the shackles of matter, a man at one with the immensity of the present and of the future’ (L. Fontana, quoted in L. M. Barbero, ‘Lucio Fontana: Venice/ New York’ in Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York, exh. cat. Guggenheim Museum, New York 2006, p. 23).

Christie's. Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 6 March 2019

Lot 32. Pierre Soulages (b. 1919), Peinture 162 x 130cm, 16 octobre 1966, signed 'Soulages' (lower right); signed, titled and dated ‘SOULAGES 16 Oct 66 162 x 130’ (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 63 ¾ x 51in.(162 x 130cm.) Painted in 1966. Estimate: £1,500,000 - £2,000,000. Price realised £1,811,250.© Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Provenance: Galerie de France, Paris.
Private Collection, Italy.
Art Emporium Gallery, Vancouver.
Private Collection, Vancouver.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Literature: P. Encrevé, Soulages, L'oeuvre complet Peintures II. 1959-1978, Paris 1995, p. 17, no. 588 (illustrated in colour, p. 171).

Exhibited: Zurich, Gimpel and Hanover Galerie, Soulages, 1967, no. 6 (illustrated, unpaged). This exhibition later travelled to London, Gimpel Fils Gallery and Paris, Galerie de France. 
Montreal, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Soulages, 1968. This exhibition later travelled to Québec, Musée National Des Beaux-Arts Du Québec.
Buenos Aires, Museo de Bellas Artes, Paris y el arte contempora´neo, 1972. This exhibition later travelled to Montevideo; Santiago; Lima; Bogota; Quito; Caracas and Mexico.
Paris, Galerie Pascal Lansberg, Soulages, 2016, p. 26 (illustrated in colour, p. 27).

Note: ‘Black … has always remained the base of my palette. It is the most intense, most violent absence of colour, which gives an intense and violent presence to colours, even to white: just as a tree makes the sky seem more blue’ –Pierre Soulages

With its glistening black beams punctuated by glints of white and ochre, Peinture 162 x 130cm, 16 octobre 1966 is a bold large-scale painting by Pierre Soulages. Stretching over a metre and a half in height, it offers a scintillating vision of light and darkness, distinguished by its horizontal layering of tonalities. Executed in 1966, the work demonstrates the artist’s consummate mastery of his medium during a period of international acclaim. Hailed on both sides of the Atlantic, Soulages embarked upon a string of significant exhibitions during the 1960s: 1966 saw the opening of his retrospective at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, curated by James Johnson Sweeney, as well as a presentation of his work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, that summer. The present work made its debut the following year, and was subsequently included in his 1968 touring exhibition originating at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Seeking neither to conjure emotions nor to document the physical act of painting, Soulages is fascinated by the balancing of abstract contrasts, creating resonant textural force fields emptied of all external references. With sweeping, near-calligraphic strokes – created using a variety of tools – he paints and repaints the surface of his canvases, simultaneously adding and stripping away layers of pigment. Inspired less by his American Abstract Expressionist contemporaries than by the timeless majesty of prehistoric and Romanesque art, works such as the present rejoice in the raw, unadulterated power of their materials. ‘I cover and discover surfaces’, Soulages explains; ‘... I am telling nothing’ (P. Soulages, quoted in R. Vailland, ‘Comment travaille Pierre Soulages’, L’Oeil, No. 77, May 1961, p. 7).

Soulages’ paintings demonstrate a complex understanding of colour and form. The artist frequently recalls a childhood episode when he was spreading black ink upon white paper. A friend of his older sister asked what he was painting; she laughed when he replied ‘snow’. He later surmised that he had been trying to render the white paper more white, luminous and snow-like via its contrast with the black ink. ‘Black … has always remained the base of my palette’, he has explained. ‘It is the most intense, most violent absence of colour, which gives an intense and violent presence to colours, even to white: just as a tree makes the sky seem more blue’ (P. Soulages, quoted in J. Johnson Sweeney, Pierre Soulages, Neuchâtel, 1972, p. 13). Soulages works on the premise that our perception of colour is dependent on its shape, density and consistency: as such, it lies beyond the limits of language. ‘Gauguin already expressed it perfectly, when he said that a kilo of green is more green than a hundred grams of the same green’, he professed (P. Soulages, quoted in ‘Peindre la peinture’, Pierre Soulages: Outrenoir: Entretiens avec Françoise Jaunin, Lausanne, 2014, pp. 12-13). Thus, each stroke of the present work is conceived as a unique entity, cast in a play of endless variation with its neighbouring elements. By using the same descriptive format for his titles – painting, dimensions, date – Soulages allows the viewer’s perception of the artwork to be guided solely by the shifting dynamics of its abstract surface.

Though his paintings are superficially comparable with those of artists such as Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, Soulages feels little affinity with his American contemporaries. When he first visited New York in 1957, Motherwell proposed that Abstract Expressionism could only truly be understood by Americans. Soulages retorted that ‘An art should be understood, loved and shared by anyone, anywhere in the world … I believe that in art, there are fundamentally only personal adventures that go beyond the individual, and even beyond his culture’ (P. Soulages, quoted in ‘Peindre la peinture’, Pierre Soulages: Outrenoir: Entretiens avec Françoise Jaunin, Lausanne, 2014, p. 31). Championing a universal appreciation of image-making, Soulages’ inspirations date largely from the earliest chapters of its history, including the 20,000-year-old cave paintings of Lascaux and the Neolithic stone carvings that populated his native region of Rodez in Southern France. He was also deeply influenced by a visit to Sainte-Foy de Conques, a famous Romanesque abbey church near his hometown. The experience of standing beneath the 11th-century building’s huge barrel vault, with its narrow shafts of light and cloak of warm darkness, would remain with him throughout his career. ‘My pictures are poetic objects capable of receiving what each person is ready to invest there according to the ensemble of forms and colours that is proposed to him’, he explains. ‘As for me, I don’t know what I am looking for when painting … it’s what I do that teaches me what I’m looking for’ (P. Soulages, quoted in Pierre Soulages: Outrenoir: Entretiens avec Françoise Jaunin, Lausanne 2014, p. 14).

Christie's. Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 6 March 2019

Lot 24. Pierre Soulages (b. 1919), Peinture 73 x 100cm 17 mai 1964, signed 'Soulages' (lower right), oil on canvas, 28 ¾ x 39 3/8in. (73 x 100cm.) Painted in 1964. Estimate: £500,000 - £700,000. Price realised £971,250. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Provenance: Kootz Gallery, New York (acquired in 1964).
Galerie de France, Paris (acquired in 1970).
Acquired from the above and thence by descent to the present owner.

Literature: P. Encrevé, Soulages, L'oeuvre complet Peintures II. 1959-1978, Paris 1995, pp. 17, 316 and 317, no. 539 (illustrated in colour, p. 154).
P. Ungar, Soulages in America, New York 2014 (installation view illustrated, p. 101).

Exhibited: New York, Kootz Gallery, Soulages at Kootz, 1965.
Toulouse, Galerie Protée, Soulages, 1972. 

Note: ‘A painting by Pierre Soulages is like a chord on a vast piano struck with both hands simultaneously – struck and held’ –James Johnson Sweeney

With its bold, calligraphic bars of black latticing a field of luminous ochre, Peinture 73 x 100cm, 17 mai 1964 is an exquisite example of Pierre Soulages’ uniquely resonant abstract painting. Soulages had first made unified linear compositions in the late 1940s, realising in them the guiding principle of his art – ‘The duration of the line having disappeared, time was static in these signs made by summary and direct strokes of the brush; movement is no longer described; it becomes tension, movement under control, that is to say dynamism’ (P. Soulages, quoted in J. Johnson Sweeney, Soulages, New York, 1972, p. 22). He experimented with sonorous chiaroscuro effects throughout the 1950s, and gradually began to create complex, translucent colour through scraping away layers of impasto. The present painting displays the radiant, smoky interplay of shadow and light typical of his 1960s work. Broad, interlocking black strokes are dragged vertically and horizontally against a smooth ochre ground; this top-heavy, largely horizontal structure, cut through by a commanding diagonal, forms an imposing yet delicately balanced presence. Varied opacities conjure a rich variety of tone and texture, with swathes of dark, tarry oil paint offset by areas dragged into delicate translucency. This exalting of his material’s innate qualities is characteristic of Soulages, who makes every decision based on the painting in front of him. He paints not as a philosopher, narrator or ideologue, but as a painter. Nor, despite winning early acclaim in America during the art world’s focal shift from Paris to New York in the 1950s, is he an Abstract Expressionist. Uninterested in communicating his emotions or states of being, he does not aim to record gesture or movement in his brushstrokes. He instead arranges contrasts into a single, forceful surface that is to be apprehended in its totality. As the artist himself says: ‘I do not depict, I paint. I do not represent, I present’ (P. Soulages, quoted in ‘Peindre la peinture’, Pierre Soulages: Outrenoir: Entretiens avec Françoise Jaunin, Lausanne 2014, p. 16).

1964 was an important year for Soulages, who had by this point reached renown on both sides of the Atlantic. He showed works in several major group exhibitions, including 56-64, Painting & Sculpture of a Decade at the Tate, London; Documenta III in Kassel; and the Pittsburgh International, where, alongside Ellsworth Kelly, Victor Pasmore and Antonio Saura, he was awarded the 1964 Carnegie Prize for painting. That same year, Soulages refused to participate in Galerie Charpentier’s annual L’École de Paris exhibition – which he had shown in on several previous occasions – because he felt it was excluding the work of many young French abstractionists who considered worthy of attention. Even as American Pop Art was gaining prominence on the global stage (an advance marked by Robert Rauschenberg’s infamous Golden Lion win at the 1964 Venice Biennale, much to the dismay of French critics), Soulages’ single-minded dedication to his vision charged European painterly debates with continued relevance. ‘In the years of great dissipation that we are experiencing,’ wrote the French critic Dora Vallier, ‘where art seems to be losing touch with its essence, where palliatives of “originality” supplant authentic creation, it seems to me necessary to underline the effort of a painter who, in seeking his truth, dug down in painting until, taking support of its very foundations, he could seize and reveal to us one of the aspects of the twentieth century’ (D. Vallier, ‘Aux antipodes de l’angoisse: Soulages ou l’enracinement de la peinture’, XXe Siècle, no. 23, Paris, 1964).

James Johnson Sweeney, an early champion of Soulages as director of the Guggenheim in the 1950s, wrote memorably that ‘A painting by Pierre Soulages is like a chord on a vast piano struck with both hands simultaneously – struck and held’ (J. Johnson Sweeney, Pierre Soulages, New York, 1972, p. 5). This apt simile captures the sustained, singular intensity of Soulages’ work. It is important to distinguish chord from melody: unlike the gestural sequences of Abstract Expressionism, a work like Peinture 73 x 100cm, 17 mai 1964 offers no itinerary to be followed, no temporal anecdote of the artist’s feelings poured onto the canvas. Neither lyrical, personal or sentimental, it is instead a single, resonant surface of overall structural energy. Soulages never paints ‘from his head’ with something already in mind, but rather responds to the paint in front of him, working directly with its viscosity, translucency and colour to build a ‘sign’ that can be apprehended in an instant. The artwork must not be an illusion, but a presence. To apply the paint, Soulages uses house-painters’ brushes or wide, flat scraping tools that he constructs himself, purposely eliding the expressive dimension of the gestural trace. Always using the same neutral format for his titles – painting, dimensions, date – he keeps any extrapictorial meaning firmly at bay, letting the experience of the picture be governed solely by the unique, unfixed dynamic of its abstract forms. Soulages’ conception of art’s universal, timeless dimension was heavily informed by the rough-hewn grandeur of the prehistoric and Romanesque art that inspired him as a youth in the south of France. ‘It’s fascinating to think that as soon as man came into existence, he started painting’, he says. ‘… I’ve always loved black, and I realized that, from the beginning, man went into completely dark caves to paint. They painted with black too. They could have painted with white because there were white stones all over the ground, but no, they chose to paint with black in the dark. It’s incredible, isn’t it?’ (P. Soulages, quoted in Z. Stillpass, ‘Pierre Soulages’, Interview Magazine, 7 May 2014). Remarkable in its concise power, Peinture 73 x 100cm, 17 mai 1964 is charged with textural life, dark brilliance and condensed energy; anticipating the ultimate breakthrough of the all-black Outrenoir canvases commenced fifteen years later, it reveals Soulages not only as a master of black, but also of light. 

Christie's. Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 6 March 2019

Lot 1624. A rare copper-red-decorated 'Peony scroll' bottle vase, yuhuchunping, Hongwu period (1368-1398); 13 ¼ in. (33.7 cm.) high. Estimate USD 300,000 - USD 500,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

The elegantly potted body is freely decorated in a greyish tone of copper red with four peony blossoms alternately shown in profile and full face and budding flowers borne on scrolling, leafy stems, all between a large cloud collar filled with hatching on the shoulder and lotus lappets containing ruyi-head pendants above a band of key fret encircling the foot ring. The neck is further decorated with upright plantain leaves above bands of key fret and peony scroll, and the top of the mouth rim with a band of classic scroll.

Provenance: Lord Trevelyan, G.C.M.G., C.I.E., O.B.E.
Lady Trevelyan; Sotheby's London, 2 April 1974, lot 193.
Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, by 1987.
Dr. T. T. Tsui (1941-2010 ) Collection, Hong Kong.
Fred Li, Hong Kong.

Literature: John Addis, "A Group of Underglaze Red", The Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1957, vol. 31, pl. Id.
Margaret Medley, Yuan Porcelain and Stoneware, London, 1974, pl. 50A.
Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, 1987, no. 626.

The present vase illustrated in J. Addis, “A Group of Underglaze Red”, The Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, London,
1957, vol. 31, pl. Id.

Exhibited: On loan: British Museum, 1958-1973.

Note: Although copper oxide was first used to produce red on high-fired ceramics in the Tang dynasty, its use was limited to a few stoneware pieces with a monochrome copper red-glaze and a larger number of vessels with designs in copper red. This limited use of copper-red decoration continued into the Song dynasty when the first examples of copper-red glazed porcelain appeared. Due to the difficulty of working with copper oxide its use continued to be limited until the Yuan dynasty when there was a concerted effort to master the material. It was during this period that the potters of Jingdezhen experimented with several different techniques in the application of copper red - splashes, reserved decoration and painted decoration. On vessels with reserved decoration, the design was incised into the body of the vessel and the copper red applied as a band that avoided the design. Two of the more successful examples of this type of decoration are the two Yuan-dynasty yuhuchunping illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 34 - Blue and White Porcelain with Underglazed Red, Hong Kong, 2000, pp. 206-207, pls. 191 and 192. Too often, the copper red, due to its fluidity, bled into the design, and eventually the method of painted decoration is the one that came to predominate during the early Ming dynasty. 

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1625. A large white-glazed anhua-decorated deep bowl, lianziwan, Yongle period (1403-1424); 8 1/8 in. (20.6 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 8,000 - USD 12,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

The bowl is finely potted with deep rounded sides finely incised on the exterior with a band of leafy scroll alternately bearing chrysanthemum and camellia blossoms below a key-fret border at the rim. The center of the interior is decorated with a chrysanthemum sprig below a band of lotus petals that rise towards a frieze of stylized waves at the rim. The bowl is covered overall with a glaze of subtle bluish tone.

Lot 1626. A rare white-glazed biscuit-decorated 'dragon' dish,Hongzhi six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle and of the period (1488-1505); 8 7/8 in. (22.5 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 50,000 - USD 70,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019

Finely potted with shallow, rounded sides, the dish is incised on the interior with a dragon leaping amidst clouds, and on the exterior with two further dragons striding on a ground of waves crashing on rocks, all reserved in the biscuit that has fired to a very pale russet color and surrounded by the unctuous glaze of pale milky-blue tone.

Lot 1628. A large blue and white jar, Ming dynasty, late 15th-16th century; 13 5/8 in. (34.5 cm.) high. Estimate USD 30,000 - USD 50,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The globular jar has a slightly flared mouth and splayed foot, and is finely decorated with the Eight Daoist Immortals (baxian) amidst trees and rocks, between a band of ruyiheads enclosing Eight Buddhist Emblems (anbaxian) on the shoulder and a band of petal lappets above the base, all below trellis pattern on the neck, Japanese wood box. 

Lot 1629. A large blue and white dish, Ming dynasty, late 16th century; 17 in. (43 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 10,000 - USD 15,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The dish has rounded sides and an inverted rim, and is decorated in the center with two pairs of Buddhist lions playing with ribboned brocade balls encircled by a band of ruyi-heads. The mouth rim is decorated with birds in flight amidst floral and fruit sprays. The exterior is further decorated with birds perched on branches, Japanese wood box. 

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1630. A rare blue and white moon flask, bianhu, Ming dynasty, late 15th-early 16th century; 13 ¾ in. (35 cm.) high. Estimate USD 30,000 - USD 50,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The flattened spherical body is raised on a quatrefoil foot and is decorated on each side with a central recess enclosing a flower head surrounded by two pairs of lions playing amidst flames, babao and the ribbons trailing from two further flower heads, all within a line border and an outer field of peony scroll. The narrow sides are decorated with a band of diaper pattern below the loop handles that flank the waisted lower section of the neck encircled by upright leaves below an encircling ridge and the tapering upper section decorated with a band of tall petal lappets and narrow bands of overlapping petals and key fret, Japanese wood box. 

Note: What makes this bianhu and others like it unusual is the addition of a tall, tapering upper neck to a conventional moon flask shape. A similar, but incomplete, flask of this unusual shape is illustrated by R. Krahl and J. Ayers in Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, vol. II, Yuan and Ming Dynasty Porcelains, London, 1986, p. 543, no. 657, where one can see that the foot and top of the neck are missing. The decoration is not identical, but is similarly arranged, and the painting style is very similar. This is also true of a complete example illustrated by J. A. Pope in Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, 1956, pl. 69, no. 29.459. On the Ardebil Shrine flask, the decoration on the neck is identical to that seen on the present moon flask, but has two bosses that protrude from the narrow sides of the body. This flask is also illustrated by T. Misugi, Chinese Porcelain Collections in the Near East, Topkapi and Ardebil, vol. 3, The Ardebil Shrine Collection, Hong Kong, 1981 rev. ed., p. 178, A. 101, where it is also illustrated with two other flasks of this type, both missing the upper section of the neck, and both without bosses. Another incomplete moon flask of similar shape is illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall in Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pp. 179-80, no. 7:5, which is missing most of the upper neck. It, too, has a quatrefoil foot and a recessed medallion on each side, but like the flask in the Ardebil Shrine, it has raised bosses on the narrow sides. The author relates this shape to Islamic metalwork prototypes. Based on the published examples, none of the flasks of this type share the same decoration on the body. The decoration is, however, always densely arranged and painted in a dark cobalt blue, which according to Harrison-Hall is typical of Hongzhi-period wares of this type.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1631. A rare blue and white 'frog' kendi, Wanli period (1573-1619); 7 ¼ in. (18.4 cm.) high. Estimate USD 40,000 - USD 60,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The ewer is naturalistically modeled as a frog seated with its head raised, with a short spout issuing from its mouth, and supporting a tall, cylindrical neck on its back. The body is decorated with flower heads below a band of overlapping ruyi-heads around the base of the neck, which is decorated with a bird perched on a blossoming prunus tree.

Provenance: Private collection, Switzerland. 

Note: Animal-shaped vessels were popular in China from early times, such as the multiple forms of animal vessels produced in Yue ware during the Jin dynasty. The frog was a particularly important form, since the frog is a symbol of longevity. 

Kendis of this unusual form are in several museum collections, including the Princessehof Museum, Leeuwarden, illustrated by M. Rinaldi, Kraak Porcelain, A Moment in the History of Trade, London, 1989, pl. 234, no. 181; the Ardebil Shrine, Tehran, illustrated by John Alexander Pope, Chinese Porcelains from the Ardebil Shrine, London, 1981, pl. 97, no. 29.465; and two in the Topkapi Saray Museum, illustrated by R. Krahl and J. Ayers, Chinese Porcelains in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, London, 1986, vol. II, pp. 730-31, nos. 1296 and 1297. Another example in the Percival David Foundation, but with a faceted neck, is illustrated by S. Pierson, Illustrated Catalogue of Underglaze Blue and Copper Red Decorated Porcelains in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, 2004, pp. 67-68, no. A669. A further example, but with the neck reduced, is illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall in Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pp. 283-84 no. 11:16. The example in the British Museum was acquired in India, attesting to the popularity of such vessels across the trading routes and diplomatic exchanges of Asia and Europe. See, also, a 'frog' kendi in the Edward T. Chow Collection Part One, sold at Sotheby Parke Bernet, Hong Kong, 25 November 1980, lot 10.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1632. A very rare and unusual blue and white wine pot and cover, Wanli period (1573-1619); 8 3/8 in. (21.2 cm.) wide including the spout. Estimate USD 40,000 - USD 60,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The wine pot is decorated on the sides with four cartouches, each depicting a gentleman accompanied by an attendant in various settings, separated by panels covered with a white glaze which is carved through with a key fret pattern to reveal the biscuit below. The shoulder and foot are decorated with bands of lotus petal panels enclosing various diaper patterns. Two U-shaped metal handles are affixed at the shoulder, and the curved spout issues from one decorative panel. The cover is decorated with four separate diaper grounds, surmounted by an unglazed finial pierced with a cash motif, Japanese wood box.

Provenance: Private collection, Japan, acquired before 1940.
Christie's Hong Kong, 27 November 2013, lot 3517. 

Note: Wine pots of this large size and design appear to be extremely rare. The design is a very painstaking but effective pattern created by carving through the white-glazed layer to reveal the biscuit body which serves as an additional, contrasting color for the overall blue and white palette. Although diaper-ground panels carved in openwork are well-documented in smaller bowls from the late Ming, the use of carving to reveal the biscuit appears to be very unusual, and no similar wine pots with this technique appear to have been published. There is, however, a large blue and white bowl which exhibits the same fretwork ground carved through to the biscuit, illustrated by J. Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pp. 368-69, no. 12:40; another similar bowl is illustrated by C. J. A. Jörg, Chinese Ceramics in the Collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The Ming and Qing Dynasties, Amsterdam, 1997, p. 64, no. 48, where the author notes that such decoration on large bowls is rare. The additional complexity of rendering such a design on a wine pot adds to its rarity and allure.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1633. A blue and white 'dragon' dish, Wanli six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle and of the period (1573-1619); 3 7/8 in. (9.8 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 10,000 - USD 15,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

With a foliate rim and rounded sides, the interior of the dish is decorated with a sinuous, five-clawed dragon leaping amidst vaporous clouds within a double circle, below a pair of five-clawed dragons pursuing flaming pearls amidst clouds in the well. The exterior is similarly decorated with a pair of further dragons chasing flaming pearls, Japanese wood box. 

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1634. A small blue and white square cup, Jiajing six-character mark in underglaze blue and of the period (1522-1566); 3 in. (7.6 cm.) square. Estimate USD 10,000 - USD 15,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The sides are decorated with alternating scenes of birds in flight and perched on tree branches, and the interior is similarly decorated with a bird perched on a fruiting peach branch within a double square. 

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1635. Two small blue and white cups, Jiajing six-character marks in underglaze blue within single circles and of the period (1522-1566); 2 ¾ and 2 3/8 in. (7 and 6 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 10,000 - USD 15,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

Each cup has shallow rounded sides decorated on the exterior with three sea beasts in flight between clouds and a ribbon-tied lozenge, and the domed center of the interior is decorated with a rock rising from waves within double circles, Japanese wood box. 

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1636. A very large blue and white 'Kraak' charger, Wanli period (1573-1619); 20 in. (50.7 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 10,000 - USD 15,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The dish is potted with wide, flaring sides, and is decorated with a central scene of a tiger on a rocky promontory next to a pine tree, surrounded by a border of eight radiating panels, four containing Daoist emblems alternating with four containing peaches. The exterior is decorated with eight further panels, each containing a circular motif. 

Provenance: Private collection, France.

Note: A very similar but slightly smaller charger (49 cm. diam.) is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World’s Great Collections. Oriental Ceramics. vol. 3, Museum Pusat, Jakarta, Tokyo, New York and San Francisco, 1982, col. pl. 37.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1637. A large blue and white 'Dragon and Phoenix' bowl, Wanli period (1573-1619); 14 7/8 in. (37.7 cm.) diam. Estimate USD 15,000 - USD 18,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The exterior is decorated on one side with a striding four-clawed dragon reaching towards a flaming pearl surrounded by flames, and on the other with a phoenix standing amidst leafy branches bearing six-petaled blossoms. The interior is decorated in the medallion with a bird perched on a rock next to a peony branch, and in the well with branches of peony and other blossoms, separated by clumps of aster.. 

Provenance: Private collection, France.

Note: Whilst the combination of a dragon and a phoenix, representing the Emperor and Empress, is a popular theme in Chinese art, the rendering of each creature in such differing painting styles, with the energetic dragon surrounded by loose fire scrolls, and the phoenix more static and hemmed in by dense flowers and foliage, is very unusual. 

The present bowl is also exceptional for its large size. A related bowl with dragon and phoenix decoration, dated to the early to mid-seventeenth century, but with an apocryphal Chenghua mark on the base, is illustrated by R. Krahl and J. Ayers, Chinese Porcelains in the Topkapi Saray Museum, Istanbul, London, 1986, vol. II, pp. 786-87, no. 1521.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1638. A very rare blue and white Ko-sometsuke ruyi-form tray, Tianqi period (1621-1627); 10 in. (25.3 cm.) wide. Estimate USD 60,000 - USD 80,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The ruyi-form, shallow tray is raised on three low loop-form feet, the interior decorated with a monkey stealing some fruit from a peach tree, and a four-clawed dragon descending amidst thick clouds. The sides on the exterior are decorated with a large diaper ground, wood cover and carved black and red lacquer cover, Japanese wood box. Together with the catalogues from the Tokyo Bijutsu Club, 1918. 

label on paper cover of box

label on box

Provenance: Narinobu Tokugawa (1797-1829) Collection, Japan, 8th generation of the Mito Tokugawa clan (according to label on box).
Tokugawa Family, Japan.
Tokyo Bijutsu Club sale, 1918, no. 205. 
Harumi Shoten, Osaka, August 1984 (according to label on paper cover of box).

Literature: Tokyo Bijutsu Club, Auction for property from the collection of the Duke of Tokugawa, 1918, no. 205.
Matsumori Art Co. Ltd., Catalogue, Tokyo, 2014, p. 110.

Exhibited: Tokyo, Matsumori Art Co. Ltd., Tobi Art Fair, Tokyo Bijutsu Club, 2014.

Note: The present tray is exceptionally rare, and very few related examples appear to have been published: one example was donated by Roy Leventritt to the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, and was included in an exhibition at China Institute, New York, and illustrated in the accompanying catalogue, Trade Taste and Transformation. Jingdezhen Porcelain for Japan 1620-1645, New York, 2006, pp. 52-53, no. 21 (the same tray is also illustrated by S. Kikutaro, Kosometsuke [Ancient Blue and White Porcelain], Tokyo, 1962, no. 26). Another example is illustrated in Tokyo National Museum. Masterpieces of Chinese Ceramics. The Yokogawa Tamisuke Collection, Tokyo, 2012, p. 094, no. 74; a third is illustrated by S. Yamaguchi and K. Yoshikawa, The Y.Y Collection. Rediscovering Nagasaki, Nagasaki, 2014, p. 10 and front cover; and a fourth is illustrated by K. Hayashi, Kosometsuke (Ancient Blue and White Porcelain), Sekido Museum of Art, Tokyo, 2017, p. 82, no. 26. 

All these comparable trays illustrate the same scene of a monkey stealing a peach from a tree, while a dragon flies through clouds. The painting style and composition of the Yokogawa Tamisuke example is particularly close to that on the present tray. It is also noteworthy that the comparable examples do not appear to be accompanied by a carved lacquer cover, unlike the present tray. 

The comparable examples are, however, all inscribed with the same poem, reading fei long zai tian, hua yuan yu tao (‘Flying dragon in the sky transforms the monkey near the peach tree’). This inscription probably refers to an episode in the late Ming popular novel Journey to the West, in which the trouble-maker Monkey King steals peaches from the tree of immortality, and thus incurs the displeasure of Huangdi, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, here represented as a dragon. Alternatively, the dragon may represent Aoguang Longwang, the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, from whom the Monkey King acquired his magic wand. 

The present tray is distinguished by its association with one of the powerful clans of Edo-period Japan. The box bears an inscription indicating that the tray was once in the collection of Narinobu Tokugawa (1797-1829), the eighth successive daimyo of Mito, an area in Ibaraki Prefecture. The Mito branch was one of the ‘three honorable houses’ of the Tokugawa family, who maintained considerable influence throughout the Edo period. Even as a youth, Narinobu Tokugawa was considered to be wise, excelling in literary and artistic matters, and he was also an avid collector. 

The present tray is documented as early as 1918, when it was illustrated in the catalogue of a sale held at the Tokyo Bijutsu Club, consisting of property from the collection of the Duke of Tokugawa. It is embellished with two covers, of which the carved lacquer cover was also illustrated in the 1918 sale catalogue. The inscription on the box also mentions that the carved lacquer cover is intended for use with the tray as jikirou, or a food vessel, and the plainer cover is for use with the tray as part of a kaiseki food course.

Fig.1 The present tray and lacquer cover as illustrated in Auction for property from the collection of the Duke of Tokugawa,
Tokyo Bijutsu Club, 1918.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019

Lot 1639. A rare blue and white Ko-sometsuke basket, Tianqi period (1621-1627); 6 7/8 in. (17.5 cm.) wide. Estimate USD 30,000 - USD 40,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019 

The rounded, rectangular basket has low sides that support a U-shaped handle. The interior is decorated with four prancing horses, the handle with a loosely-painted leafy branch and scrolls, and the sides on the exterior are decorated with further leafy branches, Japanese wood box. 

Provenance: Ikemasa Ltd., Tokyo.

Note: In the seventeenth century, with the weakening of imperial power of the Ming dynasty, Chinese potters instead turned their talents to service other markets, including the Japanese demand for elaborately-shaped wares for use in the tea ceremony. The formal Japanese tea ceremony, which became popular during the Momoyama period (1568-1615), required many vessels of specific forms, such as buckets for fresh water, small food dishes in sets of five, and handled trays for rice cakes, such as the present basket. 

A similar basket, or handled tray, also with four horses on the interior, was included in an exhibition at the Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Tokyo, and is illustrated in the catalogue, Kosometsuke and Shonzui – The Blue and White Tea Ceramics of Japanese Admiration, Tokyo, 2013, no. 9. Another example, but decorated with only three horses, is illustrated by S. Sato and T. Murayama, Kosometsuke, Tokyo, 1969, p. 75, no. 44. 

For a related handled tray in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, which is slightly smaller than the present example (16.8 cm. wide), and decorated with figures in a landscape, see S. Little, Chinese Ceramics of the Transitional Period: 1620-1683, Dartmouth, 1983, p. 49, no. 11, where the author also cites similar examples illustrated by M. Kawahara, Ko-sometsuke, vol. 2, Kyoto, 1977, pls. 351-364. 

Another handled tray, decorated with a landscape scene, is illustrated by R. Fujioka and G. Hasebe, Sekai Toji Zenshu, vol. 14, Shogakukan, Tokyo, 1976, p. 281, fig. 163. Compare, also, a shallow bowl loosely decorated with two prancing horses, illustrated by Sir M. Butler, M. Medley and S. Little, Seventeenth Century Chinese Porcelain from the Butler Family Collection, Alexandria, 1990, p. 52, no. 14.

Christie's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, New York, 22 March 2019