Posted on 03/25/2022 10:23:43 AM PDT by nickcarraway
The New York dealer Adam Williams bought the fruity still-life
A painting of a pile of strawberries by the 18th-century French artist Jean-Siméon Chardin fetched €24.4m (with fees) at Artcurial in Paris yesterday, setting an auction record for the artist. The auction house says that the price is also the highest paid at auction for an 18th-century French painting.
The work was bought by the New York dealer Adam Williams, who was bidding in the room. This was confirmed by the Old Master paintings specialist Eric Turquin who advised on the sale and wrote the catalogue entry. He also tells The Art Newspaper that the underbidder was a London gallery bidding for a private American collector and Eric Coatalem, a Parisian dealer, whose interest "pushed the picture up to €15m". Turquin told the Financial Times that he will receive a small percentage of the sale proceeds.
The previous record for a French Old Master painting was held by Bonhams for the sale of a Fragonard portrait from the collection of Gustav Rau, depicting the duke Francois-Henri d'Harcourt, which sold for £17.1m (with fees) in 2013.
While Chardin painted plenty of peaches, melons and pears, The Basket of Wild Strawberries (1761) is his only still-life to feature the eponymous fruit, making it “one of the most famous and emblematic images of the 18th century in France”, said Artcurial, which gave the painting a hefty estimate of €12m to €15m.
The work, shown at the Paris Salon in 1761, was passed down through the family of Eudoxe Marcille, a 19th-century connoisseur who inherited numerous works by influential artists such as François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard from his father, François Marcille. “[The work] remained in the hands of Eudoxe Marcille’s descendants until today; it is one of the most important 18th-century French paintings to remain in private hands,” adds the auction house.
Emerson Bowyer, curator of European painting and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, wrote on Instagram: “Sensational painting, an absolute icon of the French Enlightenment and its complexities… the painting achieved a very worthy price at auction. Jealous of the new owner!”
I’d pay ten bucks if it had a good frame.
Yeah, you can always repurpose the frame.
I know nothing about art, apparently. Those look like raspberries to my untrained eye.
They look like raspberries to me, too.
A painting of a pile of strawberries...
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We assume it’s a pile of strawberries, but what if it’s really a pile of nougat merely covered by a layer of strawberries? What then?
This is why investing in fruit themed art is such risky business. Too many unknowns.
if he painted what he saw, needed glasses...
Wild strawberries are smaller than those you would pick up at Aldi, You would be heard pressed to find that many wild ones to make that big a pile. Only one or two per plant and if they are wild, they will be in among the grass & weeds. But they have better taste than some commercial ones.
Roger that.
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