Attributed to Claudio Francesco Beaumont, Chryseis returned to her father And Quarrel of Achilles and Agamemnon(around 1740)
Hotel Bauer Palazzo, Artcurial, Venice, April 24
Estimate: €40,000 to €80,000
It’s unclear exactly how this pair of large portraits by Turin painter Claudio Francesco Beaumont ended up in the Hotel Bauer in Venice, an 18th-century palace near St. Mark’s Square that has, for the past 140 years, served high society. haunt. The building is now closed for three years to undergo a major renovation, funded in part by the sale of around 10,000 objects from its collection. There is no record of the Beaumont paintings entering the hotel and they were likely acquired after the 1950s, as they are not present in archive footage of the hotel from the 1940s and 50s, according to Elisabeth Bastier, specialist in old masters at Artcurial. Nevertheless, despite this patchy provenance history, they are valued at the very top of the Beaumont market, where prices have eclipsed €30,000 on just two occasions. “Beaumont worked at the court of Charles Emmanuel III, Duke of Savoy in Turin, who sent him to Venice in 1737 to acquire paintings,” Bastier explains of the artist’s connection to La Sérénissime. “It allowed him to get closer to the painters of Venice and the local art scene.” The works depict a scene from Homer Iliad. On the left, Achilles draws a sword against Agamemnon for taking away his concubine, Chryseis. We see the goddess Athena trying to hold Achilles by the hair. In the right panel, Chryseis is returned to her father, Chryses of Troy.
Marsden Hartley, On the beach1940-41
Modern American Masterpieces from the Ted Shen Collection, Christie’s New York, April 21
Estimate: $1.5M to $2.5M
American modernist Marsden Hartley was, until the last five years of his life, best known as a landscape painter, but a late-career shift towards figuration led him to produce some of his most critically acclaimed works. This current lot is one of three known paintings by him depicting figures at Old Orchard Beach in southern Maine, once known as “New England’s Coney Island” for its liberal atmosphere. Like much of Hartley’s figurative work, men are depicted hypermasculinely with blocky bodies – “a fraternity of stoic, often solitary country lads: lobster fishermen, loggers and athletes”, writes curator Randall R. Griffey in a catalog essay. for a solo exhibition of Hartley’s work in 2017 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. These depictions are interpreted by most scholars as relating to the artist’s unconfirmed homosexuality. Perhaps in an attempt to adhere to the social mores of the time, a female figure is included in this work to reduce its homoeroticism, Griffey argues. The work is offered as part of a sole proprietor sale of works from the collection of musical theater composer Ted Shen and his wife Mary Jo, to benefit their philanthropic organizations.
Amedee Modigliani, girl head (1917)
Avant Garde: Art from 1900 to Now, Lyon & Turnbull, London, April 27
Estimate: £40,000 to £60,000
Artist John Christopher “Kit” Wood purchased this sparse line drawing of Modigliani just a few years before the 35-year-old died. The two mixed in similar bohemian Parisian circles, to which Wood was introduced by his patron and former lover, Chilean lawyer José Antonio Gandarillas. Although the terms of the work’s sale to Wood are not recorded, it is known that he then sold it to his London dealer, Alex Reid at the Lefevre Gallery, in March 1930, less than six months before his own death by suicide, at the age of 28. is offered in Lyon & Turnbull’s first Avant Garde: Art from 1900 to Now sale, held at the Mall Galleries in London. It’s a category that Lyon & Turnbull scholar Simon Hucker says will help broaden the category of modern British art to include, among others, immigrant artists who made London their home before and after the wars.
Courtesy of Sotheby’s © Kathleen Hoare
Abdel Hadi El Gazzar, Untitled1960
The Al Zayani Collection, Sotheby’s London, April 25
Estimate: £40,000 to £60,000
This painting comes from a brief period of transition for the influential Egyptian modernist artist Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar, when he moved away from the religious Sufism that defined his early career and preceded his later exploration of the themes of industrialization and the conquest of space. During this intermediate period, the artist went to Rome and produced a series of portraits. The majority adorn their models with flamboyant folk motifs, making this particular work unusual for its spared detail and muted palette. It was previously owned by prominent collector Mohammed Said Farsi, who served as mayor of Jeddah in the 1970s and 1980s. It now comes to the block as part of a sole proprietor sale from the collection of Abdulrahman Al Zayani.
Courtesy of Poly Auction Hong Kong
Yoshitomo Nara, Acid MJ2009
Poly Auction Evening Sale, Hong Kong, April 29
Estimate: 34–44 million HKD ($4.3–5.6 million)
Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara is collected by celebrities around the world, from BTS rapper RM to fashion designer Stella McCartney, with whom Nara collaborated on a collection last year. But few depictions of celebrities exist in Nara’s work, and this painting of pop star Michael Jackson is the only known depiction of a musician by him. Yet Western popular culture is undoubtedly present in his work, where it is fused with Japanese iconography to form his lucrative signature style. The artist has previously explained how his first exposure to Western culture came through the music of the 1970s and 80s broadcast on radio in Japan. At the time, Michael Jackson was at the height of his career and would no doubt have been familiar in Nara.
