Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Promenade des oliviers. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2014

signed 'Henri.Matisse' (upper left), oil on canvas, 8¼ x 22 in. (46.2 x 56 cm.). Painted in 1905. Estimate£2,000,000 – £3,000,000 ($3,324,000 - $4,986,000)

Provenance: Galerie Druet, Paris.
Michael & Sarah Stein, Paris, by whom acquired from the above in Spring 1906 (entrusted to Greta and Oskar Moll, Berlin, 1914 - circa 1917; allegedly confiscated by Fritz Gurlitt, Berlin, 1917 - 1919; reclaimed for the Steins by Hans Purrmann in 1919).
Christian Tetzen-Lund, Copenhagen, by whom acquired circa 1922; his sale, Winkel & Magnussen, Copenhagen, 10 June 1936, lot 6.
Carl Schepler, by whom acquired at the above sale.
Mrs. O. Hauch, by descent from the above.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Please note that the present work has been requested for inclusion in the following exhibition: 'From Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Expressionism in Germany and France, 1900-1914'.
Kunsthaus, Zürich: 7 February 2014 – 11 May 2014
LACMA: 8 June 2014 – 14 September 2014
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: 6 October 2014 – 25 January 2015

Literature: R. Labrusse & J. Munck, Matisse-Derain, La vérité du fauvisme, Paris, 2005, no. 20 (illustrated p. 36).
Exh. cat, The Steins Collect, Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde, New Haven & London, 2011, no. 111, p. 411 (illustrated pls. 366, 367, 370 & 371).
Exh. cat, Matisse, In Search of True Painting, New York, 2012, p. 4 (illustrated fig. 1).

Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Druet, Henri Matisse, March - April 1906, no. 11 (as 'Promenade dans les oliviers').
Berlin, Kunstsalon Fritz Gurlitt, Henri Matisse, July - August 1914, no. 8 (as 'Ölbäume, 1905').
Copenhagen, Ny-Carlsberg Glyptotek, Henri Matisse, September 1924, no. 25.
Stockholm, Föreningen Fransk Konst - Fransk Genombrottskonst Fran Nittonhundratalet: Bonnard, Braque, de la Fresnaye, Derain, Léger, Matisse, Picasso, Utrillo, March - June 1931, no. 101; this exhibition later travelled to Oslo, Gothenburg and Köpenhavn.
Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, Henri Matisse - Four Great Collectors, January - May 1999, no. 49, p. 21.

Notes: Wanda de Guébriant has confirmed the authenticity of this work.

Promenade des oliviers is a rare and historic painting by Henri Matisse, dating from the pivotal Summer in Collioure in 1905 which marked the beginning of his crucial Fauve period and led to his becoming one of the prominent leaders of the avant garde of the Twentieth Century. During this time, he abandoned the Divisionism that had earlier characterised his work and instead reached a more expressive and expressionistic means of depicting the world. This is clear in Promenade dans les oliviers in the way that the fields of colour have been rendered with a vivacious energy that recalls the pictures of Vincent van Gogh, lending the entire composition an incredible sense of vitality. The historic nature of this picture is underscored by its notable provenance: this was one of the pictures owned by Michael and Sarah Stein, two of Matisse's most important patrons and indeed friends. The painting featured in a number of photographs of their apartment at 58, rue Madame in Paris as early as around 1907, making it amongst the first works by the artist to enter their outstanding collection, which included numerous masterpieces many of which are now in museums throughout the world.

The rarity of Promenade dans les oliviers relates in part to the fact that Matisse returned to Paris from his 1905 stay in Collioure with only around fifteen canvases, according to Hilary Spurling's biography (see H. Spurling, The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse, Volume I 1869-1908, London, 1998, p. 327). Yet this was one of the most important watershed moments in his entire career, as he wrought himself with angst while plunging into the unknown territory of the then as-yet unnamed Fauvism with which he would come to be so inextricably associated. Indeed, it was in part alongside André Derain, his young protégé, that Matisse painted in Collioure. As is clear from Promenade dans les oliviers and other pictures of the period such as Paysage de Collioure, also known as Etude pour "Le bonheur de vivre", likewise owned by Michael and Sarah Stein and now in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Matisse was boldly dissolving the Divisionism that had hitherto dominated his work and was instead plunging into a more spontaneous means of rendering the world, featuring a far bolder, less restrained palette. The link between these works shows that Promenade des oliviers was one of the paving stones for Matisse's masterpiece of this period, Le Bonheur de vivre, now in the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.

The revolutionary nature of Promenade dans les oliviers is reflected in the fact that Matisse painted the same motif in two identically-scaled canvases yet in two hugely different styles. As was recently demonstrated by the juxtaposition of both pictures at the beginning of the catalogue for the recent high-profile and acclaimed exhibition of Matisse's works held in the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Promenade dans les oliviers was painted with an expressionistic vigour in which any Divisionist rigour has been shunned, giving way to bold passages of paint; by contrast, in Oliviers à Collioure, the same scene is shown using the dabbed, loose Pointillism that reveal the artist's continued experimentation with Divisionism (see D. Aagesen & R. Rabinow, eds., Matisse: In Search of True Painting, exh. cat., New York, 2012, p. 4).

Matisse was clearly assessing his new developments in a highly analytical manner, creating two pictures in two styles and comparing them directly in order to chart his progress. While the Steins were to acquire Promenade dans les oliviers soon after its creation, Oliviers à Collioure would remain in Matisse's own collection for a long time - he was cited as the lender when it was exhibited in Alfred H. Barr, Jr.'s retrospective of his work held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1951.

Perhaps the fact that Matisse painted these two pictures of the same motif implies that he was still at the more experimental stage of his campaign in Collioure, before the firebrand Derain's arrival. At the beginning of his time in Collioure, the small fishing village in the Catalan part of southern France near the Spanish border, Matisse had developed various rhythms during his days, often travelling with his family to a nearby bay in order to swim away from the detritus that was flung into the harbour, including fish remains from the processing of anchovies. Perhaps it was on one of these walks through the trees that Matisse placed his wife Amélie for Promenade dans les oliviers and its sister picture.

It was in fact Amélie who had discovered Collioure. It was in many ways perfectly suited to Matisse's needs: it was far enough away from the rest of the art world to allow seclusion, letting him carry out his experiments in peace. At the same time, it was cheap, a key factor considering that Matisse was himself suffering from limited funds. The poverty and relative isolation of Collioure meant that it was essentially unspoilt. The only artist known to have previously worked there was Signac some decades earlier - and he claimed to have cut his own trip short because the locals suspected he was a spy when he was in nearby Port-Vendres, an indication of the attitude to outsiders held by some of the coastal Catalans in the region (see Spurling, op. cit., 1998, p. 300). However, there was space for children to play, and Matisse's innate respectability appeared to stand him in good stead with the locals.

Meanwhile, several of Matisse's fellow artists lived or stayed nearby, some in Saint Tropez. Aristide Maillol lived only a handful of miles away at Banyuls, and Etienne Terrus in nearby Elne. The presence of these artists within easy reach, and of some of the fellow Divisionists and Fauves at a distance that made frequent communication possible, provided a safety net to Matisse, who corresponded with his contemporaries frequently, often discussing his own frustrations. He had travelled to Collioure to engage upon an artistic campaign in which he intended to liberate his forms and colours from the stricter structures of Divisionism, as espoused by his friend and fellow artist Paul Signac.

Already, Matisse had been growing increasingly dissatisfied with his near-Pointillist output, especially after his exposure to the works of the younger painters Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck. Matisse, who had already met Derain and been impressed with his work and demeanour, recalled his first encounter with Vlaminck, whose paintings were filled with daring, glaring colour:

'One day I went to the van Gogh exhibition at Bernheim’s in the rue Lafitte. I saw Derain in the company of an enormous young fellow who proclaimed his enthusiasm in a voice of authority. He said, "You see, you’ve got to paint with pure cobalts, pure vermilions, pure veronese." I think Derain was a bit afraid of him. But he admired him for his enthusiasm and his passion. He came up to me and introduced Vlaminck... To tell the truth, the painting of Derain and Vlaminck did not surprise me, for it was close to the researches I myself was pursuing. But I was moved to see that these very young men had certain convictions similar to my own’ (Matisse, quoted in J. Elderfield, The 'Wild Beasts’: Fauvism and Its Affinities, Oxford, New York & Toronto, 1976, p. 30).

Looking at Promenade dans les oliviers, it is clear that Matisse would gradually come to espouse those 'pure cobalts, pure vermilions, pure veronese': there is a palpable sense of pulsing energy in the dabs and strokes of pure colour in the picture. These recall the influence of Van Gogh, the artist whose idiosyncratic pictures would come to provide the foundations of so many subjective means of pictorial expression. This painting, like those of Van Gogh, is concerned less with the objectivity and observation of more recent art, and more with sensation and emotion. Indeed, looking at the work, it recalls some of Van Gogh's own images of olive trees, for instance his picture showing the harvest, painted in 1889 at Saint-Rémy and now in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Holland (F 587). The links with that picture may be more direct, as Matisse would surely have seen it earlier in 1905 when it featured in the Exposition Rétrospective Vincent van Gogh held as part of the Salon des Indépendants. Matisse himself was involved in the organisation both of the Salon, helping Signac, and of the Van Gogh exhibition itself, and therefore would have had direct exposure to this picture. Looking at Promenade dans les oliviers and the Van Gogh, one wonders if the central figures are not in some way echoes of each other, albeit one is a male labourer and the other Madame Matisse.

It is a mark of the artistic distance that Matisse had travelled in Collioure during his 1905 stay there that, only months after his return from the South of France, he was to participate in the Salon d'Automne alongside several other artists who were working in a similar vein, especially Derain and Vlaminck. Their works were placed together in Salle VII, alongside a more classical sculpture by Albert Marque. This juxtaposition would lead to Louis Vauxcelles' declaration: 'Donatello parmi les Fauves!' In turn, this would lend these bold artists their name.

Matisse's success as an artist would owe a great deal to the Salon d'Automne, as it was on this occasion that his work came to the attention of the Stein family. Siblings Leo and Gertrude would eventually, encouraged by their brother Michael and his wife Sarah, buy Matisse's La femme au chapeau. That picture, now in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, was later acquired from them by Michael and Sarah, who was known as 'Sally'. Indeed, it was due to their encouragement that Leo and Gertrude bought the work; Michael and Sally had more limited funds and therefore were unable to purchase the work themselves at that point. However, it must have been soon after that acquisition by Leo and Gertrude that they began to collect Matisse's works, including Promenade dans les oliviers.

From this point onwards, there were two branches of Stein patronage in Paris: the more Picasso-orientated Gertrude and Leo and the more Matisse-leaning Sarah and Michael at 58, rue Madame. Regarding their patronage, Matisse himself gave some insight into this more overlooked branch of the family:

'Madame Michel Stein, whom Gertrude Stein neglects to mention, was the really intelligently sensitive member of the family. Leo Stein thought very highly of her because she possessed a sensibility which awakened the same thing in himself’ (Matisse, quoted in A.H. Barr, Jr., Matisse: His Art and His Public, New York, 1951, p. 58).

The support of the Steins at this crucial juncture allowed Matisse to pursue these avenues of Fauvism and later to move beyond them. Crucially, their encouragement also allowed him to see how right he had been to follow this path. Contemporary photographs taken around 1907 already show an accumulation of Fauve paintings by Matisse on their wall, including Promenade dans les oliviers, revealing how speedy their dedication to the artist was following the epiphany at the Salon. Within the space of a couple of years they had acquired an impressive range of works: alongside Promenade dans les oliviers are others including the famous portrait of Madame Matisse dubbed La raie verte because of the bold green stripe that the artist used down the centre of her face, as well as a self-portrait believed to have been painted in Collioure the following year, both now in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.

Those two pictures are in Copenhagen now in part due to the history of the Steins' own collection, including Promenade dans les oliviers. All of these works, together with over ten others, were loaned by the Steins to Fritz Gurlitt for exhibition in Berlin around 1914. However, the outbreak of the First World War resulted in these works remaining in Germany. Despite the efforts of Hans Purrmann, one of Matisse's students and admirers, to recover the paintings for the Steins, without his knowledge they were subsequently sold by the couple - on whose behalf he thought he was acting - to the Danish industrialist Christian Tetzen-Lund. Many of the works that entered Tetzen-Lund's collection would remain in Denmark in either private or public collections. Tetzen-Lund was a corn merchant who acquired an incredible array of works by a number of artists, in part working with the guidance and assistance of Walter Halvorsen, ranging from Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Van Gogh to Derain, Pablo Picasso and of course Matisse himself. Indeed, he appears to have owned around twenty of Matisse's pictures, including Le bonheur de vivre (see M. Hahnloser-Ingold, 'Collecting Matisses of the 1920s in the 1920s', pp. 235-74, J. Cowart & D. Fourcade, Henri Matisse: The Early Years in Nice 1916-1930, exh. cat., Washington, D.C. & New York, 1986, p. 264). Tetzen-Lund was also generous enough to open his home to the public on occasion, allowing them a rare glimpse of modern art during the years after the First World War, when international travel was difficult (see D. Aagesen, 'Art Metropolis for a Day - Copenhagen during World War 1', pp. 299-234, H. Van den Berg, ed., A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1900-1925, New York, 2013, p. 308).

Despite the loss of many of their first tranche of works by Matisse including Promenade dans les oliviers, Sarah and Michael Stein remained close friends of the artist. They lived in Paris until the mid-1930s and were sympathetic patrons and supporters of in the painter. They were tireless in promoting Matisse's works themselves, even after their return to their native United States of America. They would often lend a number of their pictures, allowing their belief in Matisse's work to outweigh their attachment to them, sending them to exhibitions that granted him far wider exposure. This was the case already in the early 1900s: only shortly after Promenade dans les oliviers was painted, the Steins had to return to San Francisco following the earthquake there in order to assess the damage to their properties. While there, Michael and Sally had brought three works by Matisse, the first to be seen in the United States. Likewise, it was Sarah who introduced Etta Cone to Matisse; she and her sister would later assemble the famous Baltimore collection that, bequeathed to their native city, has such a rich array of pictures by Matisse.

Christie's. IMPRESSIONIST/MODERN EVENING SALE. 4 February 2014. London, King Street - www.christies.com

Gold, platinum, emerald, pearl and diamond brooch, Marcus & Co. Photo Sotheby's

Designed as a heart composed of scrollwork motifs, centering a round emerald weighing 2.82 carats, accented by two old European-cut diamonds weighing approximately 2.00 carats, further set with smaller old European and old mine-cut diamonds weighing approximately 1.00 carat, framed by 12 pearls measuring approximately 4.4 to 4.2 mm, signed Marcus & Co., fitted with retractable pendant loop; circa 1900. Estimation 15,000 — 20,000 USD

Accompanied by GIA report no. 2155835944 stating that the pearls are natural, saltwater.
Accompanied by AGL report no. CS 58580 stating that the emerald is of Classic Colombian origin, with no indications of clarity enhancement.

Sotheby's. Important Jewels. New York | 06 Feb 2014 - www.sothebys.com

René Magritte (1898-1967), Le regard intérieur (The inner gaze). Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2014

indistinctly signed 'Magritte’ (lower left); signed 'René Magritte’ and titled (on the reverse); gouache on paper, 18 x 14 in. (45.8 x 35.6 cm.). Executed in 1949. Estimate£500,000 – £700,000 ($831,000 - $1,163,400)

Provenance: Mr P. Demaerel and Mrs M.L. Demaerel, Belgium; their Estate Sale, Sotheby's, London, 27 June 1995, lot 36.
Acquired at the above sale by Mrs T. S. Eliot.
PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE MRS. T.S. ELIOT

Literature: Letter from Magritte to Iolas, 24 October 1949.
Letter from Iolas to Magritte, 12 December 1949.
Letter from Iolas to Magritte, 16 December 1949.
H. Torczyner, Magritte, Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, no. 333, p. 269 (illustrated p. 162; titled "La grande feuille aux oiseaux" and dated circa 1948).
D. Sylvester, ed., S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte: Catalogue raisonné, vol. IV, Gouaches, Temperas, Watercolours and Papiers Collés, 1918-1967, London, 1994, no. 1305, p. 127 (illustrated).

Exhibited: New York, Brooklyn Museum, International Water Colour Exhibition: Fifteenth Biennal, May - June 1949, possibly no. 26c (titled "The Inner Eye").

Notes: In Le regard intérieur, a host of exotic birds sit perched in a plant - only this plant, instead of being a tree, is one of René Magritte's iconic tree-leafs. These had emerged in his paintings in 1935, first making their appearance in La géante, and had subsequently been a recurring motif, often going through variations and juxtapositions that gave this poetic invention new energy. Here, the tree-leaf's impossibility is made vivid by the addition of this aviary, which appears to tap into the legacy of Flemish and Netherlandish paintings by Old Masters such as Frans Snyders, bringing to the fore Magritte's irreverent attitude towards the revered artists of the past. Not only do the birds add flashes of rich colour to the composition, but they also serve to illustrate the paradoxical 'depth' of the picture: the birds are arranged on 'branches' which are in fact the veins of this giant, essentially flat, leaf. Thus, in Le regard intérieur, Magritte has managed to play with the entire nature of painting, disrupting the perspective of the picture by presenting the 'tree' as a flat surface upon which the birds are sitting. Considering this deceptively complex play of perspective, it seems only too appropriate that an earlier exploration of the birds on a tree-leaf was entitled La troisième dimension. That work was lent from the Theo Wormland collection to the Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Munich, which since became a bequest.

Another related picture from 1948, only a year before Le regard intérieur was created, was given the title Le rendez-vous, perhaps reflecting the addition of stormy sea in the background. Where La troisième dimension had featured the leaf shown almost in silhouette against a background of pure sky, leaving it effectively without context, in Le regard intérieur, there is a wall leading to the sea; meanwhile, monumental bilboquets are standing in a huddle to the left of the composition. Upon the wall is a glass of still water, a continuation of the fluid theme of the sea, adding to the interplays and resonances that vibrate throughout this picture, enhancing its discreet lyricism.

Magritte's vision depended on unusual and unexpected associations that brought about a deeper understanding of the mysteries of our own existence. La géante had been one of the first works in which Magritte had begun to explore his 'elective affinities'. In his earlier works, prompted by the epiphany he had experienced when he had seen Giorgio de Chirico's masterpiece Le chant d'amour, Magritte had presented mysterious juxtapositions of unlikely objects or impossible landscapes. Suddenly, inspired in part by a vision in which he saw the bird in a cage in a room in which he stayed replaced by an egg, he understood that it was by exploring the relationships between the elements of our universe that he could tap into their inherent mystery. So it was that the tree-leaf had come into existence, a solution to the 'problem' of the tree. In Le regard intérieur, he has added a new dimension to that 'problem', by showing the impossibly exotic range of birds roosting upon a giant leaf. Meanwhile, he has also added another 'elective affinity' between the water in the glass and in the sea. While there is nothing 'impossible' about the juxtaposition of these two items, Magritte has nonetheless managed to present them in such a way that they become all the more expressive of the mystery of the world. In this way, he is stripping away all the assumptions about our surroundings that we are too apt to make, encouraging us to view our universe afresh.

For Magritte, perhaps because trees so often serve as a natural habitat for birds, the association between flora and avian fauna was one that he explored in a number of ways. Indeed, as well as showing birds perching impossibly within giant leaves, he also create a chimeric hybrid, the 'Leaf/Bird', as opposed to the 'Bird/Leaf' of Le regard intérieur. In those images, for instance L'île au trésor of 1942, it was the capacity of flight for the birds that Magritte disrupted, rooting them to the ground and changing their feathers for leaves.

The year after Magritte had painted Le regard intérieur, his friend, the poet Louis Scutenaire had written a commentary upon Le rendez-vous which equally applies to this picture: 'To make sure of killing them in the hunt, man would shoot showers of arrows into the animals he painted on the walls of caves. Today, he restores life to the leaf by showering it with birds' (Scutenaire, quoted in D. Sylvester (ed.), S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, vol. II, London, 1993). This commentary appears to play with both the notion of the three-dimensionality of the motif and also with the sheer vivacity embodied in the firework-like display of colours of the exotic birds in Le regard intérieur.

18 karat white gold, tanzanite and diamond ring, Sifen Chang. Photo Sotheby's

Designed as a cluster of seven tumbled tanzanite beads weighing 80.50 carats, accented by vines set with round diamonds weighing .68 carat, size 6¼, with Chinese characters for Sifen Chang. With signed box. Estimation 20,000 — 30,000 USD

Tanzanite, the beautiful and rare blue-violet variety of the mineral zoisite, was discovered in the foothills of Mount Kiliminjaro in 1967 and named in tribute of its host country, Tanzania.

Sotheby's. Important Jewels. New York | 06 Feb 2014 - www.sothebys.com

René Magritte (1898-1967), Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit (The hunters at the edge of night). Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2014

signed 'Magritte’ (lower right); titled (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 31 7/8 x 45 5/8 in. (81 x 116 cm.). Painted in 1928. Estimate£6,000,000 – £9,000,000 ($9,972,000 - $14,958,000)

Provenance: Galerie L'Epoque (E.L.T. Mesens), Brussels, by August 1928.
Galerie Le Centaure (P.G. van Hecke), Brussels, by whom acquired from the above in January 1929.
E.L.T. Mesens, Brussels, by whom acquired in 1932 at the liquidation of the above.
Claude Spaak, Brussels, by 1933 and until at least June 1934.
E.L.T. Mesens, London.
William and Noma Copley, Chicago, by whom acquired from the above circa 1956-1957.
Acquired from the above by the present owner on 19 October 1978.
PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE COLLECTION

Literature: Letter from Paul Nougé to René Magritte, in Lettres surrealistses, April 1928, no. 145.
Postcard from René Magritte to E.L.T. Mesens, 22 August 1928.
Variétés, Brussels, no. 7, 15 November 1928, p. 365 (illustrated).
A.De Ridder, La jeune peinture belge, de l’impressionnisme à l’expressionnisme, Antwerp, 1929, p. 39 (illustrated).
L. Scutenaire, Magritte, Chicago, 1958, no. 34.
P. Waldberg, René Magritte, Brussels, 1965, p. 128 (illustrated).
Exh. cat., Magritte, London, 1969, p. 60.
A.M. Hammacher, René Magritte, London, 1974, p. 90 (illustrated p. 91).
R. Calvocoressi, Magritte, Oxford, 1984, no. 22 (illustrated).
D. Sylvester & S. Whitfield, René Magritte, Catalogue Raisonné, vol. I, Oil Paintings, 1916-1930, Antwerp, 1992, no. 228, pp. 279-280 (illustrated p. 279).
D. Sylvester, J. Bouniort & M. Draguet, Magritte, Houston, 2009, p. 185 (illustrated).
S. Gohr, Magritte, Attempting the Impossible, Antwerp, 2009, no. 188, p. 128 (illustrated).

Exhibited: Brussels, Galerie l’Epoque, René Magritte, January 1928.
Brussels, Salle Giso, E.L.T. Mesens & E. van Tonderen présentent seize tableaux de René Magritte, February 1931, no. 12, p. 12.
Brussels, Palais de Beaux-Arts, Exposition René Magritte, May – June 1933, no. 9.
Brussels, Palais de Beaux-Arts, Exposition Minotaure, May – June 1934 no. 70.
New York, Julien Levy Gallery, René Magritte, January 1938, no. 7.
Knokke, Casino Communal, Ve festival belge d’été, expositions René Magritte-Paul Delvaux, August 1952, no. 9.
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Dertien belgische schilders, October – November 1952, no. 57.
Brussels, Palais de Beaux-Arts, René Magritte, May – June 1954, no. 21, p. 25.
Venice, XXVII Biennale di Venezia, June – October 1954, no. 35, p. 227.
Antwerp, Stedelijke Feestzaal-Meir Antwerpen, Kunst van heden, salon 1956, October 1956, no. 102, p. 11.
Little Rock, Arkansas Art Center, Magritte, May – June 1964.
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, René Magritte, Le mystère de la réalité, August – September 1967, no. 21, p. 74 (illustrated p. 75).
Stockholm, Moderna Museet, René Magritte, October – November 1967, no. 15, p. 6.
New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Magritte, December 1977, no. 2.
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Rétrospective Magritte, October - December 1978, no. 75 (illustrated); this exhibition later travelled to Paris, Musée national d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, January - April 1979.
Paris, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Rétrospective Magritte, January – April 1979, no. 75, (illustrated); this exhibition later travelled to to Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, October - December 1978.
Humlebaeck, Louisiana Museum, René Magritte, September 1983 – January 1984, no. 31, p. 49.
London, The Hayward Gallery, The Southbank Centre, Magritte, May – August 1992, no. 37 (illustrated); this exhibition later travelled to New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, September – November 1992, Houston, The Menil Collection, December 1992 – February 1993, and Chicago, The Art Institute, March – May 1993.
Dusseldorf, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, René Magritte, Die Kunst der Konversation, November 1996 – March 1997, no. 3, p. 253 (illustrated p. 89).
Paris, Musée national d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, La revolution surréaliste, March – June 2002, p. 437 (illustrated p. 186).
Paris, Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Magritte, February – June 2003, p. 76 (illustrated p. 77).
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Magritte, The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938, September 2013 – January 2014, no. 53, p. 247 (illustrated p. 114).

Notes: René Magritte's Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit is one of his iconic early Surrealist paintings, having featured in many of the most important monographs and exhibitions dedicated to his work, beginning within his own lifetime. Indeed, already only a few years after it was painted, it was being included on a regular basis in exhibitions of Magritte's pictures, to which it was lent by a succession of owners who were closely involved with Magritte himself: Gustave Van Hecke, E.L.T. Mesens, Claude Spaak and, from the mid-1950s, William Copley. Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit was painted in 1928, during the time that Magritte was based in Paris in order to be closer to the Surrealist group around André Breton. That year was the most fruitful of Magritte's entire career, reflecting the sense of enlightenment that had descended upon him as he created masterpiece after masterpiece, tapping into a rich seam of ideas and inspiration. It is a reflection of the importance of these early Surreal works by Magritte that so many of them are now in museum collections around the world. Of the pictures that Magritte painted in 1928, only around one fifth were painted on the large scale of Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit, which was done in the largest format of canvas that he used that year, indicating his appreciation of the importance of its subject.

Many of the works that Magritte created in and around 1928, during his stay in the French capital, combined the poetic transformations of the everyday world that had already become his hallmark with a certain dark intensity, and even violence. Looking at several pictures from this period, for instance the two versions of Les jours gigantesque which appears to show a struggle as a prelude to a rape, Les amants with its heads covered in winding sheets, or L'idée fixe with its stalking hunter in one of the quadrants of the composition, there was a clear under- or over-tone of suspense, anxiety or violence at play. This may reflect Magritte's own personality, his preferences and his background; at the same time, it appears in tune with Breton's diktat, published in Nadja the same year Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit was painted, that, 'Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all' (A. Breton, Nadja, R. Howard, trans., New York, p. 160). Robert Hughes summed up the 'convulsive' energy of Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit when he declared:

'for panic, one need go no further than Magritte's Hunters at the Edge of the Night, 1928, with its two stocky, armed and booted chasseurs writhing in apprehension at the sight of an empty horizon. We see their fear but, inexplicably, not what they are afraid of' (R. Hughes, 'Introduction', pp. 5-8, The Portable Magritte, New York, 2001, p. 7).

In the catalogue raisonné of Magritte's works, it was suggested that the atmosphere of Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit may owe itself to the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Magritte devoured his writings, not least in the famous translation by Charles Baudelaire, and several of his pictures appear to make references to them. In Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit, the walls may recall those in The Pit and the Pendulum, a short story about a victim of the elaborate torture techniques of the Spanish Inquisition, at the end of which hot walls are enclosing him, approaching ever closer (see D. Sylvester (ed.), S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, vol. I, London, 1992, p. 279). Certainly, the crepuscular light appears to hint at the departing day and the oncoming night, adding a somewhat Gothic dimension to the scene with the hunters, who have themselves become the hunted, caught as though in some monumental trap. They are held fast by the wall into which their own bodies appear to have been partially absorbed: the hunter on the left has lost his foot, while the other's head is missing, seemingly immured. These fragmentary figures recall the intriguing overlapping man and woman of Les jours gigantesques, showing their common heritage. Indeed, in the catalogue raisonné of Magritte's works, it has been surmised that Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit was painted after Les jours gigantesques and was part of an almost narrative development that arched through his pictures that year, in this case ending at Le genre nocturne, a missing painting that shows a woman covering the void where her head should be with her hands, while standing next to a void in the wall.

In Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit, the sense of tension is accentuated by the bulk of the figures, adding a sheer physicality to their efforts to free themselves. This struggle is likewise made all the more mysterious and dramatic by the gap to the right, where the barren landscape stretches towards the distant, glowing horizon. The corner of wall at which these hunters are standing is made all the more enigmatic by this contrast between confinement and space. According to a letter apparently written by Magritte's friend Paul Nougé around April 1928 and almost certainly discussing this picture and therefore giving its date some certainty, that composition may have changed at some point: 'Thank you so much for drawing me a picture of your latest canvas. I find it absolutely remarkable,' he wrote to the artist.

'I admire the care you have taken to particularise the event, to endow it, by the precision of certain details, with the maximum of concrete reality, thus guaranteeing, to my mind, the intensity of its effect. I also commend the precaution you have taken to eliminate that third figure which might have produced the impression of a "well-made" picture. I understand this all the better since I have often had occasion to modify in a similar way prose pieces whose perfection was becoming embarrassing, because I felt it might charm or arrest attention to the detriment of what I really wanted to achieve' (Nougé, quoted ibid., p. 279).

Reducing the composition to only two figures accentuates the terror through the contrast with the spacious landscape. At the same time, it introduces the theme of duality that runs like a thread through so much of Magritte's work from the period, be it in images that contain repeated motifs, such as his portrait of Nougé, or his earlier works, La pose enchantée, La fin des contemplations, or in pairings such as the man and woman in Les jours gigantesques or the couple in Les amants. In Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit, the two figures recall the book-end-like assailants in L'assassin menacé, now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In this way, by reducing his subjects to a dualism or dichotomy, Magritte was able to tap into some of the fundamental aspects of human nature, ageless themes which are given new momentum in his works, viewed from new perspectives. Even the concept of the wall, such an everyday element of life, becomes mysterious and dangerous in Magritte's universe, trapping these hunters and suffocating one of them. The solid aspects of our existence become mutable and magical. As Magritte wrote to Nougé the year before he painted Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit:

'I think I have made a really striking discovery in painting. Up to now I have used composite objects, or else the placing of an object was sometimes enough to make it mysterious... I have found a new potential in things - their ability to become gradually something else, an object merging into an object other than itself' (Magritte, quoted in J. Helfenstein & C. Elliott, '"A Lightning Flash Is Smoldering beneath the Bowler Hats": Paris 1927-1930', pp. 70-87, A. Umland, ed., Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary 1926-1938, exh. cat., New York, 2013, p. 73).

Nowhere is this more clear than in Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit with the men being absorbed by the wall; Magritte has also managed to add a terrifying dimension to this forced juxtaposition of two separate concepts, man and material.

Magritte made a second version of Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit, which was painted by 1936, was exhibited several times, and was owned by Mesens; it was destroyed while in storage in London during the Second World War (see D. Sylvester (ed.), S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. IV, London, 1994, app. 131, pp. 322-23). By an intriguing twist, Nougé would serve as the model when Magritte revisited the theme of the hunter whose body is partially caught in a wall in a subsequent variation, his 1943 picture, La gravitation universelle. That work was based on a photograph that Magritte took, showing Nougé in hunting garb by the wall. The fact that Magritte returned to this subject against the backdrop of the Occupation reveals his own understanding of the ability of this theme to convey feelings of intense anxiety and entrapment, both then and earlier, when he created Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit.

Looking at Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit in comparison with La gravitation universelle, it becomes clear that the former is a far more stylised work, with its stocky hunters. The physicality of these figures, which featured in a number of pictures from the period, adds to the pathos of their plight, as they are trapped regardless of the implied strength of their bodies; this effect is heightened by the large size of the picture - Magritte only painted around a fifth of his 1928 works on a canvas of this scale. These forms are almost expressionistic in their distortions and hint at the possibility, discussed by numerous authors including David Sylvester, that Magritte had been influenced partly by reproductions of the frieze showing the battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Certainly, the missing body parts recall ancient statuary, while the incredible sculptural quality of these squat hunters also recalls the Greek frieze, with its figures shown in high relief. At the same time, the depiction of the subjects also recalls Pablo Picasso's works from the early 1920s; living in Paris at the time, it is reasonable to suppose that Magritte would have been able to see those works as well as Picasso's more recent Surreal output.

Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit was sent by Magritte from Paris to the Galerie de L'Epoque in Brussels later in 1928. Indeed, on 22 August, he wrote Mesens a note thanking him for letting him know that 'The Hunters is in perfect condition' (Magritte, quoted in Sylvester, op. cit., 1992, p. 279). This shows an early title that had been adopted for the work; later, it was referred to by Magritte as Les chasseurs condamnés, while Nougé suggested compromis instead. However, by the time it was exhibited publicly for the first time in 1931, the title had reached its current form.

That exhibition took place at the Salle Giso in Brussels and was quite an event. It marked the return of Magritte from Paris the previous year. On the occasion, a number of his more recent works were shown - strangely, few of the pictures from 1928 had been shown in galleries, although Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit had already been published in Variétés, the short-lived review edited by the work's then owner, Van Hecke, having been kept by him from the stock of the then-dissolved Galerie L'Epoque. In 1930, Magritte had tired of Paris and in particular of the strictures of the Surreal movement there, which followed Breton too rigorously for the Belgian artist's liking. He appears to have actively sought out an occasion to squabble with Breton and then, following this, left. He was clearly keen to leave his years of Parisian Surrealism behind him: he apparently burnt many of his photographs, letters and documents from the period with his friend Louis Scutenaire. Indeed, the incinerated objects even included an overcoat, a mark of his desire to eradicate certain memories (see S. Gablik, Magritte, London, 1992, p. 65).

Magritte's return to Brussels was fêted with an exhibition that certainly underlined his Surreal credentials. According to a review, the show in which Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit was first revealed, having been lent by Van Hecke alongside fifteen other works mainly from Nougé, was opened in a spectacular manner:

'The first guests were surprised to find the hall plunged in darkness, and two lackeys in scarlet livery and with powdered hair standing on either side of an enormous lighted candle. A double metronome ticked away the while in the empty silence.
'About one o'clock in the morning, some fifty guests, among whom could be discerned up to three Surrealists, including two dissidents, crowded around the buffet, where whisky and gin were flowing freely. A gramophone began playing barrel-organ tunes, and M. Créten-George opened the ball, and was followed by all the bright young things.
'It was only at a very late hour that the assembled guests, intrigued by the ecstatic look which Mlle Solange Moret from the Casino was gazing intently at the walls, suddenly discovered hanging there some pictures belonging to M. Nougé, painted by M. Magritte. A concert of praise was immediately organised under the brilliant direction of M. Gustave van Hecke' (Le rouge et le noir, 18 February 1931, reproduced in D. Sylvester (ed.), S. Whitfield & M. Raeburn, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, vol. II, London, 1993, p. 9).

In fact, it appears that the valets had their faces painted green; the music was discordant for part of the soirée as different tunes were being played simultaneously on four gramophones, and early in the morning, the lights were raised so that the pictures on the walls, including Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit, became visible. The evening clearly passed well, not least for Magritte, about whom it was written elsewhere:

'The painter M... who was the hero of the evening, danced a great deal. To demonstrate his ardent love of the people, he granted a waltz to one of the liveried valets, and then performed the java with the cloakroom attendant. She was, in fact, extremely charming... Which goes to show that Surrealists are not stuck-up' (Midi, 12 February 1931, quoted ibid., p. 9).

Two years later, Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit was included in a one-man show held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels; this was one of the few pictures from the period that had previously been exhibited. By then, Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit was lent by Magritte's friend, Claude Spaak. The pair had met in 1931, and Spaak would become an important supporter of Magritte's work as well as a prominent collector. Spaak also lent Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit to an exhibition dedicated to the predominantly Surreal review, Minotaure, in 1934, also held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts. On this occasion, the picture was shown alongside a formidable selection of works by a wide range of artists including Constantin Brancusi, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Man Ray, Henri Matisse and Picasso (see ibid., p. 26).

In the 1950s, Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit was acquired by William Copley. Although Copley had initially shown little interest in art, in 1948 he and his brother-in-law John Ploydardt, an artist and animator for Walt Disney, together set up an art gallery (see S. Cochran, 'Passing the Hat: René Magritte and William Copley', pp. 75-79, S. Barron & M. Draguet, Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of Images, exh. cat., Los Angeles, 2006). Although the Copley Gallery which they founded in Beverly Hills was short-lived, it was nonetheless influential, exposing Magritte and a number of other Surreal artists to the West Coast. At the same time, for Copley, who was a man of independent means, it provided a springboard into the world of the Surreal. He would financially back each exhibition by buying works, and was introduced to a number of the artists who had fled France for the United States during the Second World War.

Eventually, after the closure of the gallery, Copley accompanied Man Ray to Europe and lived in France for a decade. Copley himself had become an artist in his own right by this time. During that time, he was introduced to Magritte, with whom he had already corresponded and whose works he had already collected. Apparently, the initial meeting was a disappointment: Copley was surprised, after the flamboyance of the Parisian Surrealists, to find a man wearing respectable bourgeois garb. But soon he was fascinated by Magritte's uniform, which often served as a foil to his outrageous acts and visionary art. Indeed, Copley himself would pay Magritte the ultimate compliment by adopting the iconic bowler hat as part of his own outfit in later years. This was a mark of the esteem in which he held Magritte, which also became the basis of their friendship. It is a tribute to their relationship that Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit would remain in Copley's collection for over two decades.

Christie's. THE ART OF THE SURREAL. 4 February 2014. London, King Street - www.christies.com

18 karat two-color gold, abalone, star sapphire and diamond clip-brooch, France. Photo Sotheby's

Designed as an abalone seashell centered by a purple star sapphire measuring approximately 18.8 by 15.1 mm, decorated with round and rose-cut diamonds weighing approximately 1.35 carats, with French assay and workshop marks. Estimation 7,500 — 10,000 USD

Sotheby's. Important Jewels. New York | 06 Feb 2014 - www.sothebys.com

Claude Monet (1840-1926), L'Église de Varengeville, soleil couchant. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2014

signed and dated 'Claude Monet 82' (lower right), oil on canvas, 25½ x 31.7/8 in. (64.8 x 81 cm.).Painted in 1882. Estimate£4,000,000 – £7,000,000 ($6,648,000 - $11,634,000)

Provenance: Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, by whom acquired directly from the artist in 1882.
Georges Petit, Paris, by whom acquired from the above in 1883.
M. Herz, by whom acquired from the above in 1885.
Henri Vever, Paris; sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 2 February 1897, lot 81.
Durand- Ruel & I. Montaignac, Paris, by whom acquired at the above sale.
I. Montaignac, Paris, by 1899.
Jules-Émile Boivin, Paris, and thence by descent.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED COLLECTION

Literature: A. de Lostalot, 'Exposition des oeuvres de M. Cl. Monet', in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1 April 1883, p. 346.
G. Dargenty, 'Exposition Internationale de Peinture', in Courrier de l'Art, Paris, 29 May 1885, no. 264.
P.E. Mangeant, 'Exposition Besnard, Cazin...', in Journal des Artistes, 19 February 1899, pp. 2-3.
A. Dalligny, 'L'Exposition de la rue de Sèze', in Le Journal des Arts, 25 February 1899.
J. Leclerq, 'Petites expositions, Galerie Georges Petit', in La Chronique des Arts, 25 February 1899, p. 70.
E. Bricon, Psychologie de l'Art, Paris, 1900, p. 301.
G. Geffroy, Claude Monet, Sa vie, son temps, son oeuvre, Paris, 1922, p. 108.
D. Wildenstein, Claude Monet, Biographie, et catalogue raisonné, vol. II, Lausanne, 1979, no. 294, pp. 66-67 (illustrated).
D. Wildenstein, Claude Monet, Catalogue raisonné, vol. II, Cologne, 1996, no. 726, pp. 270-271 (illustrated p. 270).

Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Monet, 1883, no. 28.
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 4ème Exposition internationale de peinture, 1885, no. 72.
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Tableaux par Besnard, Cazin, C. Monet.., 1899, no. 47.
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Monet, January - April 1970, no. 27.
Tokyo, Galeries Seibu, Monet, March - May 1973, no. 35; this exhibition later travelled to Kyoto Municipal Museum and Fukuoka, Akarenga Cultural Centre.

Notes: Claude Monet's Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant was painted on the Normandy coast in 1882 and is one of several historic views of this church that he created that year. This light-saturated picture, which is filled with the delicate light of evening, in fact belongs to a group of four views from similar stand-points. In only one of these do the trees to the right not feature, implying some movement; of these pictures, the others are all in museum collections: the Columbus Museum of Fine Art, Ohio; the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham; the JB Speed Art Museum, Louisville. In each of these works, Monet has explored a different light effect, underscoring his credentials as an Impressionist and also pioneering the serial works which he would create more and more frequently during the rest of his career, for instance his pictures of haystacks, of Rouen Cathedral or of water lilies. Monet and his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, appear to have recognised the importance of Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant as it was included, only the year after its completion, in the important one-man exhibition held in his gallery in Paris. Indeed, a drawing specifically created by Monet after this picture was used to furnish one of the reviews, by Alfred de Lostalot, in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Durand-Ruel managed to sell the picture to his rival Georges Petit, but would later buy it back. Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant also passed through the hands of several celebrated collectors, including Henri Vever and Jules-Emile Boivin. The iconic nature of this series was reflected when they were used as a springboard for the Brazilian contemporary artist Vik Muniz' 9000 Yards, Church on a Hilltop at Varengeville, after Claude Monet, which comprises a photograph taken of a reconstruction of the same view, made with 9000 yards of thread.

Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant was painted at a turning point in Monet's life and career. He had returned to his native Normandy at the beginning of 1882 in order to paint there, having left his children with Alice Hoschedé in Poissy. They had recently moved there, having left Vétheuil, but were suffering from the friction of their unusual domestic situation. In Vétheuil, Alice had been a part of the household, helping Monet with the children following the death of his wife Camille in September 1879. For her to move with him to Poissy, while still ostensibly married to Ernest Hoschedé, tore some of the veil of altruism from some people's eyes, and she found it hard, living with six children on a shoestring while Monet was elsewhere.

It may have been this fractious domestic background, including the recent bereavement, that brought about the change in atmosphere in Monet's depictions of Normandy. This was, after all, the region in which he had learnt to paint, having been taken under the wing of the great local master, Eugène Boudin. Monet had painted Normandy again and again throughout his life; yet now, at the beginning of the 1880s, he disregarded the scenes of modern life and fashion that had so fascinated him before, instead seeking out dramatic vistas that were often devoid of people and which conveyed a sense of desolation as well as intense, rugged beauty. This is certainly the case with Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant, in which the church is shown perched on a distant crag; the shoreline appears to plummet to the sea, a landscape filled with beauty but perhaps not with comfort. Like many of his landscape paintings from this campaign, Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant is devoid of people. The church of Saint Valéry, so poignantly poised, would have been a perfect expression of his mood, all the more so because of its graveyard filled with simple markers for the deceased fisherfolk (a later artistic connection would come when Georges Braque, who lived locally, created stained glass windows for the church, and after his death was buried there).

Monet was fascinated with the landscape in Normandy, rough-hewn by the weather and the waves. 'I can't help myself from being seduced by these admirable cliffs,' he declared (Monet, quoted in R.L. Herbert, Monet on the Normandy Coast: Tourism and Painting, 1867-1886, New Haven & London, 1994, p. 73). The year before he painted Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant, he had been enchanted by the views at Fécamp; the year after, he would tackle one of the icons of the French landscape, Etretat, which had previously been painted by a number of artists including another of his mentors, and indeed a witness at his wedding, Gustave Courbet. It has been suggested that Monet's return to Normandy in the early 1880s was in part a reaction to Courbet's legacy: he had died in 1877, but his Normandy landscapes and seascapes had become significant parts of the French avant garde canon, tapping into a vision of France during that troubled period following its defeat during the Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent revolutionary chaos. Certainly, looking at Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant, there is more of Courbet's grandeur than of the ephemerality of the flighty society life that had previously occupied Monet.

On his 1882 campaign in Normandy, Monet had initially arrived in Dieppe. Having been brought up in Le Havre and exposed to life in Paris, he had been disappointed by the city, although impressed by its surroundings. Soon, he had discovered and relocated to Pourville, a small town on the coast which had little other than fishermen's houses and a casino-hotel named 'A la Renommée des Galettes', in which he stayed. As he had arrived off-season, the proprietor, an Alsatian chef called Paul Graff, looked after him with enthusiasm - and crucially, for very little money. From Pourville, Monet was able to travel to a number of sites, discovering views along the coast that he was able to immortalise in his paintings. Among these were several spots at Varengeville, a little further along the coast. The church shown in Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant was one motif which obviously attracted Monet, as he painted it several times from approximately the same position, returning to it later in the year and showing it cresting the cliffs as viewed from below in three other views (interestingly, two years earlier it had also caught the eye of his friend Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who depicted it during a stay with Paul Bérard at the nearby Château de Wargemont). Monet was also struck by the customs hut at Le Petit Ailly, by Varengeville, which he painted more than a dozen times that year, visiting it both on his first trip at the beginning of 1882 and also later, when he returned to Pourville with Alice and their respective children during the Summer. He would subsequently return to the same motif in the 1890s; the house no longer exists, a victim of the erosion of the cliffs.

The customs house had been in a striking location upon the cliffs at a height designed to give it a panoramic view of the sea, from which Monet himself clearly profited. Originally, the customs house had been built there so that the coast could be surveyed as part of a campaign of vigilance ordered by Napoleon, aimed at preventing any invasion by the British armed forces at the beginning of the year. In the views of that house, Monet showed it from a variety of angles, but in many of them, he was exploring compositions analogous to that shown in Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant, with the building perched on the shoulder of the slope, a ravine dividing it from the artist or viewer, the sea occupying a significant part of the background, with a relatively high horizon giving the sense of looking downwards, emphasising the plummeting coastline.

As befits a view of a church, a more stately edifice than the customs watchman's hut, the similarities in composition belie the difference in atmosphere between the two groups of pictures: there is an informality in the latter pictures that is at odds with the more composed impression given by the four paintings of the church of Varengeville. This is especially the case in the pictures which contain the group of trees to the right: this serves as a framing device, emphasising scale and distance, while also recalling the landscapes of one of the great fathers of the genre, Claude Gellée, better known as Claude Lorrain (or even simply Claude, or 'le Lorrain'). It is a mark of the distance that Monet's art had come that he was willing to confront a composition that would certainly echo the pictures by the Old Master.

Indeed, it is a confrontation: where Claude would depict his idealised landscapes with incredible, meticulous attention to detail, usually placing some form of narrative element in the foreground, such as his picture of Hagar and the Angel, Monet was using such formality as a foil for his own far more lively presentation of his view. There is an immediacy to Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant which is conveyed through the turbulent, almost foaming brushwork of the foreground, where the bushes and foliage have been rendered with frenetic brushstrokes; at the same time, the feathered brushwork in the background conveys a softness lacking in Claude's works. In addition, Monet has avoided narrative, instead allowing the view, and his impression of it, to speak for itself.

While the trees to the right in Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant give a sense of formality, the one shown peeking into the composition on the left hints at the spontaneity of a snapshot, lending the painting a very different impression. Indeed, of the four works showing this view, it is only Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant that contains this element. This recalls the views that were made by other Impressionists such as Edgar Degas, who would often include unexpected, sometimes even brutal, vertical elements in his compositions. In Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant, the fact that the tree snakes out of the composition before curving back into it adds to the abrupt sense of surprise that it introduces. In fact, it recalls the compositions of some of the Japanese woodblock landscapes that Monet so adored and which he had collected for over a decade already by this time, for instance those by Utagawa Hiroshige. Indeed, the entire composition can be seen to echo some of Hiroshige's views. This apparent connection between Hiroshige and Monet is all the more pertinent in the case of Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant as it was owned by the jeweller Henri Vever, a great collector of Impressionist works whose interest in the movement had come through his own passion for Japanese art.

The palpable sense of spontaneity and freshness which Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant exudes is in part a reflection of Monet's desire to capture what appears to be a single moment in time, as the sun sets, causing the long shadow to be cast by the church. In this picture, those shadows appear longer than they do in the Columbus Museum of Art's example; by contrast, the shadows appear more pronounced in the Barber Institute's view. This lends the four views a sense of seriality, as though they were a sequence of images; it also reflects the working methods that Monet was honing during this period. Monet preferred to work outdoors, the quintessential pleinairiste - although in reality he would sometimes complete his works in his studio; this may also be why he relied on drawings such as that in the Musée Marmottan, showing the church of Varengeville. Despite sometimes taking recourse to those other techniques, Monet would brave the elements, carting around his various canvases and materials. Those canvases would often show the same view at different times and under different light effects, allowing him to switch from one to the other as the motif changed before his eyes. This was a technique that he would develop throughout his life, for instance with his views from the turn of the century showing the Thames shown from the same vantage point - the window of his room in the Savoy Hotel in London.

Monet's enthusiasm for the views he found in Normandy may have influenced his decision, the following year, to rent a house and land at Giverny; this would become his base for the rest of his life, and would allow him to sally forth on his various painterly campaigns, especially in his locality. Gradually, he would cultivate surroundings at Giverny, including his legendary gardens, which allowed him to find a constant supply of subject matter on his own doorstep. However, it is a mark of the importance of the views of Varengeville that he would return there again at the end of the following decade.

The money that Monet used to rent Giverny - he only subsequently managed to buy it - in part reflected his increasing importance. Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant featured in an exhibition which helped to seal his status as one of the premier landscape painters of his day. This was a one-man retrospective featuring fifty-six paintings from throughout Monet's career, held by his dealer Durand-Ruel in Paris in 1883. Intriguingly, the recent works from Pourville and Varengeville appear to have been the ones that garnered most attention. Initially, Monet was concerned at the lack of footfall and journalistic interest taken in the exhibition; this was not to last: there followed a flurry of lengthy articles by Philippe Burty, in La République Française, Gustave Geffroy, in La Justice, and Alfred de Lostalot, in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, for which Monet provided a drawing of Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant to be illustrated. Indeed, de Lostalot praised this picture as well as a few others: 'They are painted in subdued light, filtered by a mist-saturated sky that by and large intercepts the violet rays. The View at Rouen is one such… also his Views of Holland, his Effect of Snow at Argenteuil, his Church at Varengeville at sunset' (de Lostalot, 'Exhibition of the Works of M. Claude Monet', pp. 101-04, C. Stuckey, ed., Monet: A Retrospective, exh. cat., New York, 1985, p. 104). Burty said of Monet, in his review: 'Amongst the Impressionists, no other is gifted with such spontaneity and such lively impressions, and no other is able to express them with as much breadth and charm' (P. Burty, 'The Landscapes of Claude Monet', pp. 98-101, ibid., p. 98).

As well as forming a part of the celebrated collection of Henri Vever, Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant was owned by the industrialist Jules-Emile Boivin, a significant collector of Impressionist works who had founded a highly successful sugar company with a cousin. The picture also passed through the hands of Durand-Ruel both soon after its execution and also later, when it appears to have been reacquired in collaboration with the dealer and collector Isidore Montaignac, who had worked with Georges Petit (who also previously owned the work). Durand-Ruel was one of the great pioneering art dealers of the modern era; he had been the trailblazer behind the idea of abandoning group exhibitions and showing one-man exhibitions, such as that of Monet in which Eglise de Varengeville, soleil couchant featured.

Christie's. IMPRESSIONIST/MODERN EVENING SALE. 4 February 2014. London, King Street - www.christies.com

18 karat white gold and diamond brooch. Photo Sotheby's

Designed as an openwork bow, centered by a round diamond weighing approximately 1.40 carats, further set with numerous round, rose and single-cut diamonds weighing approximately 19.45 carats, fitted with retractable pendant bails, three small diamonds missing; together with a cord to allow for wear as a pendant. Estimation 18,000 — 22,000 USD

Sotheby's. Important Jewels. New York | 06 Feb 2014 - www.sothebys.com

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), La cueillette des pommes. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2014

signed and dated 'C.Pissarro. 81' (lower left), oil on canvas, 25½ x 23.3/8 in. (64.8 x 54.3 cm.). Painted in 1881. Estimate£2,000,000 – £3,000,000 ($3,324,000 - $4,986,000)

Provenance: Julie Pissarro, Eragny, by descent from the artist, in 1904.
Galerie Paul Rosenberg, Paris.
Galerie Thannhauser, Lucerne.
Josef Stransky, New York, by 1933.
Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, by whom acquired from the above, circa 1936.
Robert Wallis, by whom acquired from the above in 1944.
Jacques Lindon, New York.
Evelyn Annenberg Jaffe Hall, by whom acquired from the above in 1950, and thence by descent, sale; Christie's, New York, 6 May 2009, lot 13.
Acquired by the present owner in 2009.
THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTOR

Literature: M. Hamel, 'Camille Pissarro: Exposition rétrospective de ses oeuvres', in Les Arts, March 1914, p. 30.
R. Allard, 'Les arts plastiques: Camille Pissarro', in Les Écrits français, 5 March 1914, pp. 64-66.
P.B.C., 'The Stransky Collection of Modern Art', in Bulletin of the Worcester Art Museum, vol. XXIII, Winter 1933, no. 4, pp. 152-153.
R. Flint, 'French Masters of the XIX and XX Century, The Private Collection of Josef Stransky New York', Special Reprint from The Art News Supplement, May 1931, including recent accessions up to May 1935 (illustrated p. 15).
L.R. Pissarro & L. Venturi, Camille Pissarro, Son art - son oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1939, no. 545, p. 158 (illustrated, vol. II, pl. 112).
J. Rewald, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Paris, 1954 (illustrated pl. 30).
M. Stein, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Copenhagen, 1955 (illustrated pl. 30).
J. Pissarro, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1993, pp. 194 & 217 (illustrated no. 230, p. 196).
M. Ward, Pissarro, Neo-Impressionism and the Spaces of the Avant-Garde, London, 1996, p. 279.
J. Pissarro & C. Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, vol. II, Paris, 2005, no. 659, p. 440 (illustrated).

Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Manzi-Joyant, Exposition rétrospective d'oeuvres de Camille Pissarro, January - February 1914, no. 61.
The Toledo Museum of Art, Paintings by French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, November - December 1937, no. 21.
New York, Wildenstein & Co., The Pleasures of Summer, July - August 1943, no. 13.
Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Pissarro's People, June - October 2011; this exhibition later travelled to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Notes: La cueillette des pommes was painted in 1881 and has featured in a number of monographs on Camille Pissarro, a reflection of its importance. This picture, which has passed through the hands of a number of important dealers and collectors since being inherited by the wife of the artist upon his death, dates from towards the end of the period when Pissarro had been living in Pontoise, and perfectly reflects the increased interest in the human subject and figure that had emerged during his time there. Where some of his earlier works, especially in the height of Impressionism during the 1870s, had featured natural landscapes, increasingly he sought to place people within that context, with the countryside serving as a backdrop. Certainly, this is the case in La cueillette des pommes, where the composition focusses the viewer on both the girl in the foreground collecting apples and the standing figure who is holding a stick aloft, apparently hitting fruit from the branches. Meanwhile, in the background, another girl is on her knees, picking up the fruit.

It is a mark of Pissarro's own enthusiasm for this composition and subject that he would return to it several times over the following years, ultimately creating another picture also entitled La cueillette des pommes. That second work was shown at the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition, where it received a number of favourable notices, being singled out for praise from some of the other works. The 1886 picture called La cueillette des pommes, which is now in the Ohara Museum of Art, Kirashiki, having been sold to a Japanese collector as early as 1917, showed the incipient Neo-Impressionism in the distinctive, almost hatched brushstrokes that made up its surface, with dabs of different colours shown close together. In this way, Pissarro revealed his move towards the Pointillism he was developing alongside the younger artists Georges Seurat and Paul Signac at that later stage; this was a shift that did not meet with universal praise and was more accentuated in other works shown in that exhibition. While there is already a certain separation of some of the feathered brushstrokes, they nonetheless retain a cohesive sense of whole as they depict the flickering light filtering down through the trees and onto the woman and the ground. This results in a sense of dappled colour that recalls the Impressionist pictures of some of Pissarro's contemporaries, for instance Claude Monet.

Pissarro had struggled with the second version of La cueillette des pommes for some years - in a letter to his son Lucien written in 1883, he had explained that he was working on his 'Apple Eaters' (Pissarro, quoted in J. Pissarro & C. Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro, Catalogue critique des peintures, vol. III, Milan, 2005, p. 539). It was only three years later that he would complete it. In the interim, he would create several other works on the theme including a distemper image in the Archives Pissarro, Pontoise, and a drawing of the girl with the stick which is now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. John Rewald, discussing the earlier example of La cueillette des pommes, the present lot, felt that this slow process of execution and resolution of the later version was to its detriment, compared to the freshness of this earlier version. The 1886 picture in the Ohara Museum of Art, 'despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that it had been so long in the making, and also due to its less spontaneous technique, appears more static, the immediate charm of the subject that had originally seduced the artist having been lost in the process' (J. Rewald, Camille Pissarro, New York, 1963, p. 124). Intriguingly, it appears that Pissarro would often revisit subjects in order to explore a new means of presentation, even in the period before he created this first example of La cueillette des pommes (see R. Brettell, Pissarro and Pontoise: The Painter in a Landscape, New Haven & London, 1990, p. 191).

The later example of La cueillette des pommes may have been less spontaneous than this predecessor, yet it is a mark of Pissarro's skills that even this earlier version was probably less spontaneous than it appears. For a start, by the time he painted it, Pontoise, where he had been living for a number of years, was far less bucolic than here appears to be the case, and the agriculture was increasingly mechanised. In addition, it appears that, in order to conjure the scene of country living that Pissarro so keenly sought, he used servants and models for his compositions (see ibid., p. 135). Thus, even before his foray into Neo-Impressionism, there was an artifice at work. It is in part with this in mind that Brettell emphasises the importance of Edgar Degas, rather than Claude Monet, on Pissarro's country views of the 1880s.

In both of his versions of La cueillette des pommes, then, Pissarro was carefully constructing reality, augmenting it in order to be able to give a more profound sensation for the viewer, echoing Degas' statement that, 'Drawing is not what one sees but what one can make others see' (quoted in R. Kendall, ed., Degas by Himself: Drawings Prints Paintings Writings, London, 1987, p. 319). Nonetheless, he was working in the tradition of Jean-François Millet, an artist with whom he had been compared in reviews of the sixth Impressionist exhibition that had taken place earlier in 1881: 'he is of the same family as that great master and faithfully upholds the tradition' (A. Valbrègue, quoted in Pissarro & Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, op. cit., 2005, vol. I, p. 172). Crucially, then, Pissarro was looking forwards as well as backwards, keeping abreast of the advances being propagated by the avant garde. Indeed, it was during his time in Pontoise, not least during the early 1880s, that he was to come to influence younger artists including Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin, paving the way for the development of Post-Impressionism, as well as Seurat and Signac's Neo-Impressionism.

La cueillette des pommes was inherited by Julie Pissarro after the artist's death in 1903; it then passed through the hands of several dealers before being acquired by Josef Stransky. A Czech conductor, Stransky worked for a long time for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and during his tenure saw it grow in stature and popularity, paving the way for its international success. Stransky also became an art dealer, working in partnership with Wildenstein and Co. in New York; however, La cueillette des pommes appears to have formed a part of his private collection. Indeed, it was featured in an article entitled 'The Private Collection of Josef Stransky, New York', originally printed in The Art News Supplement in 1931, which included works ranging from Ingres and Courbet to Modigliani and Pissarro. La cueillette des pommes was later owned by Evelyn Annenberg Jaffe Hall, whose second husband was the prominent New York lawyer William B. Jaffe. Both Evelyn and her husband were well- known philanthropists and acquired a great collection of Asian art, as well as numerous pictures such as this Pissarro.

Christie's. IMPRESSIONIST/MODERN EVENING SALE. 4 February 2014. London, King Street - www.christies.com

Gold, platinum, demantoid garnet and diamond ring. Photo Sotheby's

Centering an oval-shaped demantoid garnet weighing approximately 9.50 carats, framed by old European-cut diamonds weighing approximately .70 carat, size 6¾; circa 1900. Estimation 70,000 — 90,000 USD

Sotheby's. Important Jewels. New York | 06 Feb 2014 - www.sothebys.com

Lucio Fontana (1899 - 1968), Concetto Spaziale, Natura. Photo Sotheby's

terracotta, 59.7 by 57.2 by 62.2 cm.; 23 1/2 by 22 1/2 by 24 1/2 in. Executed in 1959-60. Estimation 1,000,000 — 1,500,000 GBP

Provenance: Private Collection, Tokyo
Studio Casoli, Milan
Private Collection, Europe
Sale: Christie's, New York, Contemporary Art, 13 May 2009, Lot 37
Acquired from the above by the previous owner

Exposition: Genoa, Palazzo Ducale, Appartamento del Doge, Lucio Fontana - Luce e Colore, 2008-09, p. 187, illustrated in color

Litterature: Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Vol. I, Milan 2006, p. 544, no. 59-60 N 44, illustrated

Executed in 1959-60, the present work hails from Lucio Fontana’s celebrated Natura cycle of sculptures. Superbly realised, the rough terracotta sphere is nearly bisected by a dark and dramatic chasm, instantiating Fontana’s iconic slash in sculptural form. Carefully wrought by the artist’s bare hands, its softly uneven surface recalls geological landscapes – or moonscapes – forged and then worn down by eons of thundering, craterous impacts; or the natural inconsistencies of a seed in the ground. Five sculptures from the Natura cycle, three with slashes (as opposed to circular holes), are in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., each a bronze cast made in 1965 from terracotta works conceived in 1959-60. Primarily a sculptor until his forties, Lucio Fontana's favoured medium was clay, prompting him to clarify in 1939: "I am a sculptor, not a ceramist. I have never thrown a plate on the wheel, nor painted a vase" (Lucio Fontana quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Ben Brown Fine Arts, Lucio Fontana: Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings, 2005, p. 79).

Describing his inspiration for the Natura cycle, Fontana said: “I was thinking of those worlds, of the moon with these... holes, this terrible silence that causes anguish, and the astronauts in a new world. And so... in the artist's fantasy... these immense things have been there for billions of years... man arrives, in mortal silence, in this anguish, and leaves a vital sign of his arrival... they were these still forms with a sign of wanting to make inert matter live, weren't they?" (Fontana quoted in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Ben Brown Fine Arts, Lucio Fontana: Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings, 2005, p. 79). The “sign” Fontana mentions is the slash, a mark both primal and revolutionary, which for the artist symbolised man’s agency and self-expression. Like a germinating seed, an alien pod, or a meteor in the farthest reaches of space, the Natura represent unknown potentialities.

In 1957 the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, into orbit; in 1959, the Soviets landed probe Luna 2 on the moon. The “space race” permeated political rhetoric internationally, establishing the moon as the next frontier for human exploration. Deeply impacted by Italian Futurism, Lucio Fontana understood how technology could fundamentally redefine the boundaries of human existence. His Manifesto Blanco (1946) had appreciatively stated: “Futurism adopts movement as the only beginning and the only end” (Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana Catalogo Ragionato, Milan 2006, Vol. II, p. 19). For Fontana, Futurism rightly valued the forward progress of civilisation and acknowledged the implications of Einstein’s theories of relativity. Yet whereas Futurism obsessed over sleek industrial design and the sublime amalgamation of man and machine, Fontana perceived a different aspect of progress: the loneliness of vast, unexplored territories, and the return to primordial states of becoming. In 1962, again speaking about the Natura, he said: "They represent the anguish of the man in space. The pain of the astronaut, who is squashed, compressed, with instruments sticking in his skin, is different from ours... The man who flies in space is a new type of titan, with new sensations, especially painful ones" (Lucio Fontana quoted in: ibid., p. 31).

Enrico Crispolti has described the complex of ideas surrounding the Natura cycle as issuing from Fontana’s “cosmic imagination” (Ibid.). Similar themes relating to the birth of the universe and organic matter, and the primal age of celestial bodies, are embodied in Henry Moore’s iconic Moon Head (1964), which also partitions a spherical form by a central cut. The present work equally calls to mind the plaster sculptures of Louise Bourgeois, such as Avenza (1968-9), which articulates budding, abstract, and viscerally biological forms, suggesting the pan-species – perhaps even alien – emergence of life. Henry Moore and Louise Bourgeois each made such themes recurring subjects, yet Fontana best captures the astonishing otherworldliness of nature in a raw, brutish, and primeval state. Encapsulating his potent vision of humanity on the boundaries of the known, Natura is a surpassing example of Fontana’s outstanding sculptural idiom.

Sotheby's. Contemporary Art Evening Auction. London | 12 févr. 2014 - www.sothebys.com

Lucio Fontana (1899 - 1968), Concetto Spaziale. Photo Sotheby's

signed, waterpaint and painted Murano glass on canvas, 80 by 100cm.; 31 1/2 by 39 3/8 in. Executed in 1953-54. Estimation 600,000 — 800,000 GBP

Provenance: Galerie Karsten Greve, Cologne
Private Collection, Milan
Tiziano De Clemente, Milan
Private Collection, Milan
Sale: Sotheby's, London, Post War and Contemporary Art, 1 December 1988, Lot 657
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exposition: Cologne, Galerie Karsten Greve, Lucio Fontana: Plastiken und Bilder 1953-1962, 1980
Milan, Centro Annunciata, Lucio Fontana Ispiratore dello Spazialismo, 1983, no. 14, illustrated
Bologna, Gallerie Comunale d'Arte Moderna, L'Informale in Italia. Mostra dedicata a Francesco Arcangeli, 1983, p. 145, no. 7, illustrated

Litterature: Enrico Crispolti, Fontana: Catalogo Generale, Vol. I, Milan 1986, p. 124, no. 53-54 P 1, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Vol. I, Milan 2006, p. 264, no. 53-54 P 1, illustrated

With its glistening array of jewel-like colour fragments encapsulating an interplay of light and shadow, Concetto Spaziale belongs to Lucio Fontana's revered series of Pietre works, a title stemming from the semi-translucent elements of Murano glass delicately adorning their surface. The sparkling constellation of luminous stones dispersed on a galactic black expanse creates an encapsulating visual achievement. Dating from 1952–1956 this range of works followed the artist's revolutionary Buchi or holes, often considered the starting point for Fontana's ground-breaking Spatialist exploration, to which the artist had been singularly committed since first piercing the surface of a canvas in 1949. A poetic contrast of solid materiality and spatial emptiness Concetto Spaziale is a significant early example of one of Fontana’s most iconic series.

Having principally trained as a sculptor Fontana possessed an intuitive grasp of three-dimensional objects. Though famed for his work on canvas, he considered himself a sculptor and Spatialist foremost. From the making of his Scultura Spaziale of 1947 onwards he would embark on extensive spatial research, creating his subsequent Concetto Spaziale or Spatial Concepts, ground-breaking artistic achievements bestowed with a fundamentally sculptural identity. Piercing the traditional barrier of the two-dimensional canvas to create a series of Buchi, Fontana depicted the uncharted area behind the picture plane, a radical exploration, which opened up a wealth of new artistic possibility. As stated by the artist in 1962: "By making a hole in the picture I found a new dimension in the void… I invented the fourth dimension" (Lucio Fontana in conversation with Grazia Livi in: Vanità 6, no. 13, 1962, pp. 52-57). By revealing the invisible, the inconceivable limitlessness of the universe is encapsulated in the microcosm of gauged holes. Echoing the contemporaneous explorations into the incomprehensible vastness of the universe, Fontana creates an art that distinctly reflects the scientific developments of his time, and truly heralds the Space Age. With this radical move away from the two-dimensionality of the picture plane towards an art that would render a new dimension, Fontana gained his reputation as the Spatialist master of the Twentieth Century.

A poetic balance between permeation and projection Fontana’s Pietre imbue the canvas with captivating sculptural projections of light and colour, establishing a natural advancement from the Buchi works. The artist himself explained: “When I began using the stones I wanted to see if I could move forward…I thought that with the stones, the light would flow better” (Lucio Fontana in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Hayward Gallery, Lucio Fontana, 1999, p. 17). The monochrome severity of the deep black background is interspersed by glistening gold and blue aureoles, bestowing the surface with a captivating luminosity, immediately evocative of the cosmos’ radiant symphony of a star lit sky. As the jagged surface of the gem-like stones subtly capture and disperse glimmering flashes of colour, light and shadow commands the work. A formal circle of Buchi that rupture the flawless monochromatic surface, restrain the semi-random disposition of the jewelled stones. Controlled by a carefully ordered composition, the tension of the two counter forces of penetration and protrusion directly reflects Fontana’s unique artistic mission to explore the intangible depths of space and matter beyond the perimeters of the two-dimensional picture plane.

With its pervasive sense of light, space and glittering materiality Concetto Spaziale is both a riveting example of Fontana's Pietre, as well as an essential precursor to his continued Spatialist investigation, which anticipated the creation of his later series of iconic slashes and the highest achievement of his career - La Fine di Dio. An uncompromising quest for a modern visualisation of all four dimensions of space the painting makes for an astounding contribution to the visual language of modern art.

Sotheby's. Contemporary Art Evening Auction. London | 12 févr. 2014 - www.sothebys.com

Lucio Fontana (1899 - 1968), Concetto Spaziale. Photo Sotheby's

signed and dated 53; signed, titled and dated 1953 on the reverse, synthetic dye and Murano glass on canvas, 50 by 60cm.; 19 3/4 by 23 5/8 in. Estimation 350,000 — 450,000 GBP

Provenance: Marlborough Galleria d'Arte, Rome
Galerie Burén, Stockholm
G. Berumiere, Stockholm
Acquired from the above by the previous owner

Exposition: Stockholm, Moderna Museet, Oskmuseet, The Museum of Our Wishes, 1963-64, p. 67, no. 146, illustrated
Rome, Marlborough Galleria d'Arte, Fontana, 1964, n.p., illustrated in colour
Turin, Galleria Notizie, Fontana, Opere Scelte, 1966

Litterature: Michel Tapié, Devenir de Fontana, Turin 1961, n.p., illustrated in colour
The Geijutsu-Sincho, no. 12, Tokyo 1962, p. 5, illustrated in colour
Art in America, New York, January-February 1966, p. 60, illustrated in colour
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogue Raisonné des Peintures et Environments Spatiaux, Vol. I, Brussels 1974, p. 33, no. 53 P 23, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Fontana: Catalogo Generale, Vol. I, Milan 1986, p. 122, no. 53 P 23, illustrated
Enrico Crispolti, Lucio Fontana, Catalogo Ragionato di Sculture, Dipinti, Ambientazioni, Vol. I, Milan 2006, p. 260, no. 53 P 23, illustrated

Created in 1953, Concetto Spaziale forms part of Lucio Fontana’s radical investigation into the potential of three dimensional painting, in which the canvas surface was repeatedly pierced in order to transcend the conventional boundaries of two-dimensionality. In its exquisite combination of a verdant green background with jewel-like glass pebbles scattered delicately across the composition, Concetto Spaziale is a superb example from Fontana’s series of Pietre works. First initiated one year previously in 1952, these works combine the artist’s signature buchi (holes) with the multifaceted and reflective properties imparted by the addition of small fragments of Murano glass. This additional element of three-dimensionality suggested by the presence of the coloured Pietre enabled Fontana to move ever closer to attaining an interchangeable concept of sculpture and painting, an ideal he spoke of with reference to his own work: “For me, they are perforated canvases that represent sculpture, a new fact in sculpture” (Lucio Fontana quoted in: Barbara Hess, Lucio Fontana, Cologne 2006, p. 8).

The use of these cut-glass stones sourced from the island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon, evokes Fontana’s fascination with Venice: the artist exhibited frequently in the city and received acclaim for his Biennale displays in 1952 and 1966. The heady combination of ancient architecture and the endlessly varied play of light across the canals of the city appear to have acted as a source of inspiration for the artist, who also employed Murano glass for decorative effect in a later series of paintings, the Venezia cycle of 1961. Luca Massimo Barbero suggests that these fragments “signal the fantastical man-made city, its architecture by night and by day, its buildings reflecting and being reflected in the mobile light” (Luca Massimo Barbero in: Exhibition Catalogue, Venice and New York, Peggy Guggenheim Collection and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Lucio Fontana: Venice/New York, 2006-07, p. 34). Within Concetto Spaziale, the pieces of glass arguably recall the glimmer of sunlight on the waters of the lagoon, whilst the washes of green pigment that form the background are redolent in colour of these same waters within the shaded light of evening. The jewel-like tones of the glass in combination with the purity of the green background within Concetto Spaziale also recalls the work of the artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), in particular his Roses Under the Treesfrom 1905 (Museé d’Orsay, Paris).

The scattering of Buchi - or holes - across the canvas ground within Concetto Spaziale, reminiscent of a constellation within a night sky, references Fontana’s earliest attempts to access the void of space by definitively puncturing the surface, a radical gesture that crucially re-defined the concept of traditional painting. Erika Billeter commented on the ground-breaking importance of Fontana’s first perforation of the canvas: “Lucio Fontana in 1948 challenges the history of painting. With one bold stroke he pierces the canvas and tears it to shreds… Implied in this gesture is both the termination of a five-hundred year evolution in Western painting and a new beginning, for destruction carries innovation in its wake” (Erika Billeter quoted in: ibid., p. 21). Embodying this totally original creative dialectic, Concetto Spaziale is a consummate example of Fontana’s pioneering work from the early 1950s, a period of ceaseless aesthetic development and innovation.

Sotheby's. Contemporary Art Evening Auction. London | 12 févr. 2014 - www.sothebys.com

A diamond ring. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2013

Set with a rectangular-cut diamond, weighing approximately 25.11 carats, flanked on either side by a tapered baguette-cut diamond, mounted in white gold. Estimate $450,000 - $650,000. Price Realized $1,235,000

With report 2155721271 dated 11 October 2013 from the Gemological Institute of America stating that the diamond is J color, VVS2 clarity

Accompanied by a supplemental letter stating that the diamond has been determined to be a Type IIa diamond. Type IIa diamonds are the most chemically pure type of diamond and often have exceptional optical transparency. Type IIa diamonds were first identified as originating from India (particularly from the Golconda region) but have since been recovered in all major diamond-producing regions of the world. Among famous gem diamonds, the 530.20 carat Cullinan I and the 105.60 carat Koh-i-noor, are examples of Type IIa

PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

Christie's. MAGNIFICENT JEWELS. New York, Rockefeller Plaza. 10 December 2013 - www.christies.com

A pair of important diamond ear pendants. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2013

Each set with a heart-shaped diamond, weighing approximately 10.25 and 10.24 carats, to the circular-cut diamond bail, mounted in platinum. Estimate $2,200,000 - $2,800,000. Price Realized $2,629,000

With report 2155659059 dated 16 September 2013 from the Gemological Institute of America stating that the diamond, weighing approximately 10.25 carats, is D color, internally flawless clarity, with excellent polish and excellent symmetry

With report 1152659066 dated 16 September 2013 from the Gemological Institute of America stating that the diamond, weighing approximately 10.24 carats, is D color, VVS1 clarity, with excellent polish and excellent symmetry

Christie's. MAGNIFICENT JEWELS. New York, Rockefeller Plaza. 10 December 2013 - www.christies.comC

A pair of diamond ear pendants, by Harry Winston. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2013

Each suspending a pear-shaped diamond, weighing approximately 8.02 and 7.98 carats, to a kite shaped diamond, mounted in platinum, with pendant hook for suspension. Signed H.W. for Harry Winston, no. 75012. Estimate $800,000 - $1,200,000. Price Realized $1,025,000

With report 11920657 dated 31 October 2013 from the Gemological Institute of America stating that the diamond, weighing approximately 8.02 carats, is D color, VVS1 clarity

With report 11958722 dated 31 October 2013 from the Gemological Institute of America stating that the diamond, weighing approximately 7.98 carats, is D color, VVS2 clarity

PROPERTY OF A LADY

Christie's. MAGNIFICENT JEWELS. New York, Rockefeller Plaza. 10 December 2013 - www.christies.com

A convertible diamond and ruby pendant necklace, by Harry Winston. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2013

Designed as a circular-cut diamond neckchain, intersected by marquise-shaped diamond clusters, with two detachable attachments, the first, a marquise-cut diamond line, suspending a detachable pear-shaped diamond, weighing approximately 7.09 carats; and the second, an oval-cut ruby and marquise-cut diamond line, mounted in platinum, 15 ins., in a Harry Winston navy leather envelope case. Neckchain signed H.W. for Harry Winston, no. 64553; marquise-cut diamond line attachment signed H.W. for Harry Winston, no. 78662. Estimate $350,000 - $550,000. Price Realized $581,000

With report 12224476 dated 30 October 2013 from the Gemological Institute of America stating that the diamond is D color, VS1 clarity

Accompanied by an original rendering (4)

PROPERTY OF A LADY

Christie's. MAGNIFICENT JEWELS. New York, Rockefeller Plaza. 10 December 2013 - www.christies.com

Anselm Kiefer (B.1945), Lasst tausend blumen blühen. Photo Sotheby's

titled; signed on the reverse, mixed media on canvas, 190 by 280cm.; 74 3/4 by 110 1/4 in. Executed in 1998. Estimation 600,000 — 800,000 GBP

Provenance: Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London
James Cohan Gallery, New York
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Executed in 1998, Laßt Tausend Blumen Blühen delivers a monumentally solemn manifestation of Anselm Kiefer's powerful trans-historical dialectic. Belonging to the body of work inspired by the artist's travels in China during 1993, the present panoramic painting confronts the tyrannical legacy of China's communist regime within a wider mythological allusion to Pagan folklore and the Romantic dualism of eternity and transience. Echoing the artist's intrepid scrutiny of Germany's Nazi heritage – and thematically reprising the subversive early body of work, the Occupations– Kiefer turns his critical attention to Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution. Crowning the composition and hovering like a deific icon distinct from the surrounding expanse, the imposing figure of Mao Zedong dressed in a long heavy coat presides over a confettied landscape of flowers, simultaneously in bloom yet stark, overgrown, and moribund. Based on photographs Kiefer took of the colossal propagandist statues that populate the Chinese capital, the Communist leader appears middle-aged and benevolent, arm raised in an ambiguous gesture, the symbolic value of which lies ambiguously between magnanimous wave and Fascist salute. Very closely aligned to further works from this corpus housed in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Tate Collection, London, this work calls upon the austere iconography of Mao's emblematic visage with specific allusion to the infamous period within the People’s Republic of China, known as the Hundred Flowers Movement.

In 1956 Chairman Mao famously proclaimed: "The policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science". This liberal dogma was disingenuous and short lived: though encouraging freedom of expression and a healthy culture of outspoken dissent and grievance, Mao's ostensible tolerance was a covert ploy to entice “the snakes out of their caves”. By 1957, the intellectuals that dared take his word literally and speak out against his regime were promptly incarcerated and sent to work in labour camps. Kiefer’s motives are far from didactic or morally proscriptive. Mao is an antinomous figure, at the turn of the century his icon is overrun by a landscape grown wild in Kiefer’s painting. Regarding these works, Thomas McEvilley writes: “As the age grows old, Mao grows stale, the icon grows more and more ambiguous, the future more and more murky” (Thomas McEvilley, ‘Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom’ in: Exhibition Catalogue, London, Anthony d’Offay Gallery, Anselm Kiefer: Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom, 2000, p. 18). Painted almost half a century after Mao’s despotic first decade – one of the worst tyrannies in twentieth-century world history – this painting confers the waning of a revolution and the stymied culture it tyrannically engendered. The false promise of 'letting a hundred flowers bloom' is amplified by Kiefer to the count of a thousand, an intervention that furnishes a wider interrogation of recent history within a deeper pantheistic and rhizomatic-global dialectic.

This particular icon of Mao recalls Kiefer’s breakthrough 1969 Occupations, a body of work that directly confronted a national sense of inherited cultural trauma. In this series Kiefer was photographed in military regalia positioned in front of various European landmarks and locations subversively re-enacting the notorious Fascist salute. Though echoing Kiefer’s bold artistic statement and its infamous gesture, the present work and the series to which it belongs is less imprisoned by the need to work through a kind cultural penance. Rather, detached from a sense of native immediacy, Kiefer utilises the symbolic value of Mao as a vehicle through which East meets West and myriad strands of mythological, cultural and historical dialogues are interwoven. Meaning is thus more fluid and all at once Kiefer overlays Ancient Greek myth, Romantic concepts of heaven and earth, and Rosicrucian mysticism onto Mao’s displaced and free-floating iconicity.

Mao’s icon is de-contextualised: presented here within a planar flowering field, Kiefer recalls the flower-maidens of Ancient Greece and the myth of Persephone, who was snatched away from her flower gathering by Hades and dragged to the underworld; the symbol of the mystical rose whose cosmic totality is central to the Rosicrucian order; and the duality of beauty and decay at the core of vanitas symbolism. Furthermore, articulated in a ragged painterly manner Kiefer strikes an accord with Van Gogh’s psychologically charged landscapes in their deeply furrowed and impastoed rural depiction of Arles. Herein, Kiefer, to cite McEvilley, “has incorporated [Mao] into a different more complicated spirituality that contains elements Mao himself probably would not have approved of” (Ibid., p. 20). Within the myriad strands of interconnection that constitute the present work, Kiefer embroils the viewer in a complex matrix of signifiers alchemically and morally balanced between good and evil. Beyond the sardonic parody of Warhol’s congruous scrutiny of Mao’s iconicity from 1972, Kiefer’s body of work operates on a heightened spiritual level. By esoterically dissolving historical and cultural boundaries and hinting at the linkages between the deepest reaches of myth and the most sensitive and recent of collective traumas, Kiefer's Laßt Tausend Blumen Blühen is an atemporal and dreamlike universal response to sacrifice, suffering and loss. Broadcasting a unique conflation of China's brutal communist regime overlaid by a host of archaic referents, the present work implores the viewer to deconstruct and unravel a complex yet gloriously poetic painterly topography.

Sotheby's. Contemporary Art Evening Auction. London | 12 févr. 2014 - www.sothebys.com

An important sapphire and diamond pendant necklace. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2013

Suspending a cushion-cut sapphire, weighing approximately 91.38 carats, from horizontally-set graduated baguette-cut diamonds, to the baguette-cut diamond neckchain, joined by a circular-cut diamond clasp, mounted in 18k white gold. Estimate $800,000 - $1,200,000. Price Realized $1,805,000

With report CS 81948 dated 25 September 2013 from the American Gemological Laboratories stating that it is of the opinion of the Laboratory that the origin of the sapphire would be classified as Burma (Myanmar). Heat Enhancement: None

With report 71001 dated 8 September 2013 from the SSEF Swiss Gemmological Institute stating that the analysed properties confirm the authenticity of the transparent sapphire. No indications of heating. Origin: Burma (Myanmar). Accompanied by a supplemental letter from the SSEF Swiss Gemmological Institute attesting to the rarity and prestige of the sapphire

Christie's. MAGNIFICENT JEWELS. New York, Rockefeller Plaza. 10 December 2013 - www.christies.com

A sapphire and diamond ring. Photo Christie's Image Ltd 2013

Of bombé design, set with a cushion-cut sapphire, weighing approximately 14.54 carats, within an old European and old mine-cut diamond surround, mounted in platinum. Estimate $725,000 - $925,000. Price Realized $875,000

With report CS 42693 dated 30 July 2010 from the American Gemological Laboratories stating that it is the opinion of the Laboratory that the origin of this sapphire would be classified as Kashmir. Heat enhancement: None

With report 12055254 dated 11 May 2012 from the Gübelin Gem Lab stating that gemmological testing revealed characteristics consistent with those of sapphires originating from Kashmir. No indications of heating

With report 5151389025 dated 15 April 2013 from the Gemological Institute of America stating that the origin of this sapphire is Kashmir. No indications of heating

Christie's. MAGNIFICENT JEWELS. New York, Rockefeller Plaza. 10 December 2013 - www.christies.com