Une collection française: Passion partagée d'un couple d'amateurs

This collection, the product of one couple’s deep interest in Classic Decorative Arts, reflects a high level of curiosity and connoisseurship. The collection boasts an exceptional view of St. Mark’s Square by Francesco Guardi, an exemplary Transition commode and a pair of Régence style pots couverts.

Modern Art is also well represented with L’éternelle idole, a bronze designed in 1889 and executed in 1944 by Alexis Rudier, alongside a beautiful study for Klimt’s Portrait of Adèle Bloch-Bauer.

But the collection is grounded above all in Old Master Drawings, with some 40 sheets from the 16th to the late 19th century. From Caravaggio to Boldini, François Lemoyne to Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, the couple collected the work of the very best Italian and French artists. Among the sale standouts are a pen and wash drawing by Polidoro da Caravaggio called Seated woman with subsidiary head study, and a black stone drawing with wash by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, called Baiser à la fumée ou l’Occasion.