Major Prices For Major Art Expected

Wall Street Journal:1/22/10
"Set to Fetch a Grand Price"
By MARGARET STUDER

The first major European auctions of the year are turning up a number of heavyweight offerings.

For the first time in Sotheby's London Impressionist and modern art auctions (Feb. 3-4), three works will be offered that are each estimated at more than £10 million.
[Gustav Klimt's 'Church in Cassone-Landscape with Cypresses)' (1913) is estimated at £12 million-£18 million.] Courtesy of Sotheby's

Gustav Klimt's 'Church in Cassone-Landscape with Cypresses)' (1913) is estimated at £12 million-£18 million.

Gustav Klimt's "Church in Cassone-Landscape with Cypresses" (1913), a jewel-like work inspired during a summer trip to Lake Garda with his muse and lover, the fashion designer Emilie Flöge, is estimated at £12 million - £18 million. The painting comes from the collection of Viktor and Paula Zuckerkandl, patrons of the arts in Vienna in the early 20th century. The painting was inherited by Viktor's sister Amalie Redlich, who was deported to Lodz by the Nazis in 1941. After the war, the Lake Garda landscape resurfaced in a European family collection that acquired the painting in good faith. The family reached a deal with a Zuckerkandl heir to offer the painting at auction.

Also estimated at £12 million- £18 million is Alberto Giacometti's monumental, 183 centimeter-high sculpture "L'Homme qui marche 1" (1960), a lone and haunted man walking which has become one of the most iconic images of modern art, creating "both a humble image of an ordinary man, and a potent symbol of humanity," according to Sotheby's. The vendor, Commerzbank, acquired the sculpture when it took over Dresdner Bank, which had a substantial art collection.

Paul Cezanne's meticulously composed "Pichet et fruits sur une table" (1893-94), a still-life with succulent fruits, is expected to fetch £10 million - £15 million.

Meanwhile, a striking portrait at Christie's Impressionist and modern art sales in London (Feb. 2-3) will be Kees van Dongen's "La Gitane" (circa 1910-11) a sensual Spanish gypsy in blazing color (estimated at £5.5 million - £7.5 million). The painting is being offered at auction for the first time, as is Natalia Gontcharova's "Espagnole" (circa 1916), a dramatic painting fusing Cubist forms with the costume of a Spanish dancer (estimate: £4 million-£6 million).