20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York
6 November 2007
Christie’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on November 6, with previews in New York starting on November 2, will be the quintessential ‘museum of an instant,’ showcasing a tightly edited ensemble of paintings and sculpture that are among the most riveting and cardinal artistic creations of the late 19th/early 20th century. Works by Cézanne, Matisse, Modigliani, Signac and Picasso will be highlighting the sale alongside paintings by Balthus, Beckmann, Toulouse- Lautrec and Léger.
“I’m still going to the Cézanne room … the puzzlement and insecurity of one’s confrontation with his work and then suddenly one has the right eyes.”
Paul Cézanne, the father of modernism to many, is represented in the sale with an extraordinary group of five watercolors and two paintings. Of these, Portrait de Vallier, 1904/06 (estimate: $15 – 25 million) is arguably the finest watercolor to have come to market in recent memory.
The work portrays Vallier, the gardener who tended the property surrounding Cézanne’s studio in the Chemin
des Lauves. Vallier, who consented to pose for portraits on a regular basis during the last years of his life, is seen against a network of undulating tree trunks and verdant foliage. The Vallier portrait fits into the series of peasant and laborers portraits which Cézanne had begun in the late 1880s but it transcends these works in its powerful emotional charge. In fact, the work may even be considered a metaphorical self-portrait, emblematic of the close identification of the artist with his model.
Cézanne’s depiction of la Montagne Sainte-Victoire, set in a rocky and rugged landscape dotted with prehistoric caves and Celtic, Roman and medieval ruins, is widely regarded as one of the major catalysts in the development of cubism.
During the last years of his life, the artist frequently painted the vast, isolated terrain east of Aix-en-Provence, and the sale offers two exquisite drawings of the subject, La Montagne Sainte Victoire vue des Lauves, 1902/06 and the double-sided Route tournante with a recto depicting La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue des Lauves (estimate: $5 – 7 million each). In total Cézanne painted seventeen watercolors in 1902/06 which depict the craggy peak of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire from the slopes of Les Lauves.
Although these can not be regarded as an ensemble,
they do represent the last and most important series of landscapes the artist painted of this seminal
motif.
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