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LONDON: A dozen Impressionist and post-Impressionist artworks collectively valued at almost half a billion dollars are going up for auction after sitting unseen for decades in a fabled private collection in South America.<\/p>\n
Sotheby\u2019s auction house said Wednesday that works by Vincent van Gogh and Paul C\u00e9zanne are expected to smash records for the artists in the Nov. 18 sale in New York. If so, it would be the latest sign that, in uncertain times, ultrawealthy art collectors are seeking security in masterpieces.<\/p>\n
The paintings come from a collection amassed by the late Argentine art collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier and her sugar magnate husband, Carlos Pedro Blaquier, and are being sold by their children.<\/p>\n
They include van Gogh\u2019s landscape \u201cCh\u00e2taigniers en fleurs,\u201d (Chestnut Trees in Flower) estimated at $180 million, and C\u00e9zanne\u2019s portrait \u201cArlequin,\u201d which carries an estimate of $120 million. Neither has been seen in public for half a century.<\/p>\n
Helena Newman, Sotheby\u2019s head of Impressionist and modern art, said the collection was like a \u201cmini- Mus\u00e9e D\u2019Orsay,\u201d the Paris museum that holds one of the world\u2019s greatest collections of Impressionist and post-Impressionist artworks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my 30-plus years at Sotheby\u2019s, I\u2019ve never had the privilege of handling a collection of quite this content and caliber,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Newman said van Gogh\u2019s painting of flowering chestnut trees captures the \u201cexplosion of energy and vitality\u201d the artist felt after his release from a psychiatric asylum in May 1890. He took his own life two months later.<\/p>\n
The C\u00e9zanne portrait is one of four paintings of the artist\u2019s son dressed as the Harlequin figure from clowning. The other three are in major museums.<\/p>\n
Also in the collection are Parisian cityscapes by Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, a horse-racing image by Edgar Degas and a boating scene by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, all valued in the tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
Art expert Philip Hook, a former Sotheby\u2019s auctioneer, said the collection \u201creally is the stuff of legend,\u201d because the collectors did not loan out the works for exhibitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one knew really what was in it. So now, for this to be revealed, is tremendously exciting,\u201d Hook said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came out with a collection that, rather cleverly, is focused on getting one representative work by each of the major names (of Impressionist and post-Impressionist art), and that is incredibly difficult to do,\u201d he added. \u201cThey succeeded with huge, huge style and success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newman said sale is likely to attract global attention, with potential buyers ranging from American tech billionaires to well-endowed Middle Eastern institutions and rich collectors from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn times where there\u2019s a lot of global macro geopolitical uncertainty, it\u2019s almost like there\u2019s a return to really established, tried and tested\u201d works that are \u201cunquestionably great,\u201d Newman said.<\/p>\n
\u201c(This) museum-quality Impressionist collection \u2026 is pretty rare.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n