PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Joueur de cartes (A Card Player), 1892-1896
Watercolor on laid paper
Sold for $19,122,500
Cézanne and Matisse lead Christie’s sale, May 2012 ‘Joueur de cartes’, a rare watercolor by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) last seen in public in 1953; and ‘Les Pivoines’, a still-life by Henri Mattise, highlighted Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on May 1 2012 in New York.]]>
May 2, 2012, source: Christie’s / theartwolf
A lucky card player
Cézanne’s ‘Joueur de cartes (A card player)’ is one of the artist’s preparatory studies for Les joueurs de cartes (Card Players), the seminal five-painting series that Cézanne completed between 1890 and 1896. The lot sold for a reasonable $19,1 million against an estimate of $15 – 20 million. Last year, the only canvas in the “Card Players” series remaining in private hands was sold to Qatar for a reported $250 million.
Fauvist flower power
Painted in 1907, Henri Matisse’s ‘Les Pivoines’ is a very strong example of Matisse’s fauvist style. The painting was featured in an exhibition of still-lifes at Bernheim-Jeune in November 1907. It sold for $19,1 million against an estimate of just $8 – 12 million.
Picasso and Monet
Executed in 1932, Pablo Picasso’s ‘Le Repos (Marie-Thérèse Walter)’ was arguably the most beautiful work at the auction. It sold for almost $10 million, doubling its low estimate. ‘Deux nus couchés’, a late Picasso, sold for $8,8 million. Claude Monet’s pale ‘Les demoiselles de Giverny’ went for $9,6 million to an American private collector.
Related content
Cézanne’s ‘Card Players’ at the Courtauld Gallery (exhibition, 2010 – 2011)
Sotheby’s to sell one of the most important watercolor by Paul Cézanne remaining in private hands (news, 2007)
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