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Univers du Bronze
roger godchaux
Roger Godchaux (Vendôme 1878-1958 Paris) Toomai des éléphants or Le Retour de chasse au tigre (1928 or earlier) Circa 1932 H 57.5 x W 70.5 x D 22.7 cm Lifetime bronze signed 'Roger Godchaux' and numbered '2/15' Old edition by 'Susse Frères Éditeurs Paris' (mark and seal), inscribed 'cire perdue'
Galerie Jean-François Cazeau
martial raysse
Martial Raysse (Nice, 1936) Green on green, 1964 Spray paint, xerography, collage, oil and cardboard mounted on canvas 33 x 22 x 7 cm Signed Martial Raysse, dated 64 and titled Green on green (on the reverse) This work is registered in the inventory 'l'Oeuvre de Martial Raysse' under n° IMR-0193 Provenance: William Copley collection, USA; Christie's, New York, Contemporary Art - Including property from the collection of William Copley, 8 November 1993, lot 8; private collection, Paris; acquired from the above by the present owner Exhibition: New York, Galerie Luxembourg & Dayan, Martial Raysse: 1960-1974, 11 May-13 July 2013
Almine Rech
tom wesselmann
Tom Wesselmann (USA, Ohio 1931-2004 New York) 'Smoker Study (For Smoker #11)', 1972 Oil on canvas 29.2 x 29.2 cm 46.4 x 46.4 x 3.8 cm (framed) Examined by the WPI's Wesselmann committee on 13 December 2023, for inclusion in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné Provenance: estate of the artist Courtesy of the Estate of Tom Wesselmann and Almine Rech / Photo: Thomas Barratt Smoker Study (For Smoker #11), 1972 belongs to Tom Wesselmann’s Smoker series, which the artist began in 1967. Born out of a desire to isolate and further investigate the representation of lips and the act of smoking, the Smoker series also found its origin in advertising, and stands as testament to the major role Wesselmann occupied in the birth and development of the Pop aesthetic. Today, Wesselmann’s Smoker paintings are among his most renowned works. The series began with Smoker, 1 (Mouth, 12), 1967, which is now held in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Wesselmann found photography to be a useful medium to capture his models in poses he would later translate to larger scale works. On one occasion, his friend Peggy Sarno lit a cigarette during a modeling session. Wesselmann took some photographs of her as she inhaled, still posing in a reclined position. This moment inspired the Smoker series, which is characterised by the presence of vivid red lips juxtaposed with curling white smoke. Smoker Study (For Smoker #11) is both bold and intimate, capturing a single moment of pleasure in a complex and ambitious composition indicative of the artist’s experimentation with subject, form, and color. In mid-century America, cigarette advertisements were incredibly elaborate, among the most sophisticated forms of marketing. As well as standing as an example of Wesselmann’s fascination with popular culture and the female body, Smoker Study (For Smoker #11) also demonstrates the artist’s mastery of oil paint, attention to detail, and sophisticated compositional style. In the 1960s, Wesselmann had been developing his Great American Nudes series when he was inspired to focus on specific details of female figures. In an almost fetishistic act, he started isolating elements of the female figure, creating smaller preparatory pieces as well as larger scale works depicting hands, breasts, and lips. Out of this approach his Mouth paintings and Smoker Series, works such as Smoker Study (For Smoker #11) were born. Tom Wesselmann (1931–2004) was one of the leading American Pop artists of the mid-20th Century. Departing from Abstract Expressionism, he explored classical representations of the nude, still life, and landscape, while incorporating everyday objects and advertising ephemera. Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 23, 1931. He attended Hiram College in Ohio from 1949 to 1951 before entering the University of Cincinnati. In 1953, his studies were interrupted by a two-year enlistment in the army, during which time he began drawing cartoons. He returned to the university in 1954 and received a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1956. During this time, he decided to pursue a career in cartooning and enrolled at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. After graduation he moved to New York City, where he was accepted into the Cooper Union and where his focus shifted dramatically to fine art.
Brame & Lorenceau
julio gonzález
Julio González (Spain, Barcelona 1876-1942 Arcueil, France) Personnage au cornet, 1937 China ink and coloured pencil on paper 29 x 21 cm Signed and dated lower centre Provenance: private collection Literature: J. Gibert, Catalogue raisonné des dessins de Julio González, Projets pour sculptures personnages, Paris, 1975, vol. 9, p. 47 (ill.) Exhibition: New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Julio González, Drawings and Sculpture, February-April 1956, Minneapolis
Univers du Bronze
Emile-Antoine Bourdelle (France, 1861-1929) Beethoven à la colonne aux yeux fermés (1901) Studio plaster as 'à bon creux' H 62.4 x W 32 x D 28.3 cm Signed in relief 'Bourdelle' in the mould. Artist example detailled on the front in autograph writing '"Moi, je suis Bacchus... le nectar délicieux, Beethoven", dedicated on the base on the left " A Mlle Henriette Charasson, très sympathiquement, E.A.Bourdelle", example reworked by him (with letters from the sculptor to the patron). Cast in 1910
Giammarco Cappuzzo Fine Art
Giovanni Giacomo Sementi (Bologna 1584-1636 Rome) The Triumph of David, circa 1630 Oil on canvas 137 x 159 cm Provenance: private collection, Italy Literature: M. Francucci, Giovanni Giacomo Sementi, Un dipinto di soggetto insolito, in Arte Cristiana, n° 869, 2012, pp. 143-148; M. Pulini, Rimini per Simone Cantarini, opere da raccolte private, Rimini 2012, pp. 20-21, fig. 20; A. Pellicciari, I'Eredita’ di Guido Reni, in la pittura in Emilia e in Romagna. The Seventeenth Century, edited by Andrea Emiliani, Milano, 1992; G. Puglia, Il Bastaro, fig. 36, pag. 79; M. Francucci, il naturalismo classicizzato nella Roma di Urbano VIII, LibroCo Italy, Florence, 2013; Ariccia, Gian Giacomo Sementi, Quaderni del Barocco, 2021, p. 8 fig. 14
Samuel Vanhoegaerden Gallery
Bram Bogart (Delft 1921-2012 Sint Truiden) Hooigang, September 1964 Mixed media on canvas, mounted on wooden panel 106 x 124 cm Signed, dated and titled on reverse Provenance: D & R Hughes, London, 1989; private collection, Belgium Literature: Bram Bogart, The early years, 1951-1965, D & R Hughes, 1989, ill. n° 49
Galerie Oscar De Vos
frits van den berghe
Frits Van den Berghe (Ghent, 1883-1939) Ooidonk alley, 1923 Oil on canvas 48.5 x 55 cm Signed lower right: FVBerghe Provenance: Galerie Campo, Antwerp Literature: Boyens, P., Frits Van den Berghe 1883-1939 (1999), 396, n° 309 (ill.); Servaes, W., V. Van Doorne & R. Van Lerberghe, 1924 Honderd jaar later, exh. cat. (2024), 56-57 (ill. & cover) Exhibition: 2024, Sint-Martens-Latem, Latemse Kunstkring/ Gemeentehuis, 1924 Honderd jaar later, s.n. Ooidonk Alley belongs to the key works of Van den Berghe’s short but decisive stay in Bachte-Maria-Leerne (1922–1923). He lived there at the entrance of the quadruple beech-lined avenue leading directly to Ooidonk Castle. That place was an actual re-grounding – a breakthrough towards a new way of painting that no longer records, but constructs. Here, the Lys landscape is no longer seen ‘from the outside’, but becomes an inner building site. The trunks become cylindrical volumes, the soft bend of the road becomes a carrier of rhythm. The colour language definitively abandons the sombre earth tones of his Ostend years: a new clarity emerges, a ‘new spring’, in which light assumes a plastic role. Ooidonk Alley is thus a document of the moment in which Van den Berghe finds his modernity: pure form, condensed space, a landscape as architecture. This work shows how, at the end of 1922–1923, Van den Berghe redefined the Lys region: as an ordered space of line, colour and spirit – rather than a piece of nature.
Galerie BG Arts
jean dunand
Jean Dunand (Lancy 1877-1942 Paris) Cobra vase, circa 1913 Patinated and hammered copper, patinated bronze, wrought iron and lacquered wood base H 28.5 cm Signed Provenance: property of Bernard Laurent, France Literature: Art et Décoration, July 1914-December 1919, p. 121
Galerie Taménaga
Maurice Denis (Granville 1870-1943 Paris) Les Bergers, à la chèvre noire, circa 1918 Oil on canvas 45.2 x 62.2 cm Signed lower left 'Maurice Denis' Provenance: Lang; Galerie Druet; Hirschler; private collection Literature: Paris, Galerie Druet, Exposition Maurice Denis, 1918, n° 27; Ploëzal, Château de la Roche-Jagu, Maurice Denis et la Bretagne. Les étés de Silencio, 2009, n° 59, repr. p. 157
Galerie Alexis Bordes
paolo anesi
Paolo Anesi (Rome, 1697-1773) View of the Ponte Cestio from the Tiber island Oil on canvas 28 x 48 cm Provenance: anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot (Maître Baudoin), May 31st, 1919, lot n° 98 (Vanvitelli, View of a city-houses rise on both banks of a river crossed by a stone bridge. In the foreground, on the ground to the right, a fragment of a fluted column and a broken capital); private collection, France Literature: Olivier Michel, Biographical Research on Paolo Anesi, in Publications de l'École Française de Rome, Vivre à peindre à Rome au XVIIIe siècle, vol. 217, 1996, pp. 319–334 Praised during his lifetime as one of the most brilliant vedute painters of the eighteenth century in Italy, Paolo Antonio Anesi nevertheless remains a figure whose life and work are still little studied. Active in Rome, Anesi never left his native city. The panoramas offered by its hills provided him with a multitude of striking viewpoints. The Aventine, one of Rome’s seven hills, appears to have been a favourite subject. To produce his painting, Anesi positioned himself on the Isola Tiberina, a small island in the middle of the Tiber, connected to the left bank by the Ponte Cestio and to the right bank by the Ponte Fabricio.
Van Pruissen Asian Art
nagai ikka
Nagai Ikka (Japan, 1869–1940) Pair of six-panel folding screens with crows, 1930s Ink on paper H 137 x W 268 cm (each) Signed in the bottom corner Provenance: private collection, Japan Nagai Ikka (also known by the art names Zuiunan and Hanpo) was born in 1869 in Suibara, Niigata Prefecture, during the early Meiji period. He trained under leading masters of the Maruyama and Shijō schools, including Suzuki Shōnen, Nakano Kimei, and Hirafuku Hoan, and later absorbed stylistic influences from Kawanabe Kyōsai. This grounding in careful observation and naturalistic rendering provided the foundation for a personal style that balanced precision with expressive freedom. He began painting crow paintings after helping Ernest Francisco Fenollosa create 'One Hundred Crows', a painting he had commissioned from Kyosai. The late Meiji and Taishō periods were marked by profound change in Japanese art, as artists navigated between traditional aesthetics and the growing influence of Western naturalism. Ikka embraced this dialogue, drawing on classical ink painting techniques whilst expanding his horizons abroad. From 1903 to 1908, he lived in the United States, exhibiting at international events such as the Portland Expo, where he won a silver medal, and later at the Italian Expo. His crow paintings, admired both in Japan and overseas, earned him the affectionate nickname 'Doctor of Crows' from statesman Ōkuma Shigenobu. The crow (karasu) has a long symbolic tradition in Japanese culture, appearing in classical poetry, Buddhist imagery, and Shintō cosmology, most famously as Yatagarasu, the mythical three-legged crow. Ikka revitalised this motif, transforming it from a minor decorative element into the central subject of bold, dynamic compositions. This pair of six-panel folding screens demonstrates his command of movement and atmosphere. Painted in ink with sparing touches of colour, the crows appear in varied postures—perched, in flight, or interacting—creating a rhythm that guides the viewer’s eye across the expansive surface. Bold, calligraphic brushstrokes define wings and feathers, while softer washes evoke wind, mist, and shifting light. The result is a scene that is both naturalistic and poetic, combining the restraint of traditional ink painting with a striking modern vitality. Ikka’s crows are not static symbols but living presences, conveying alertness, intelligence, and social energy. His lifelong study of corvid behavior, informed by travels across Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, and the United States, gave his work an observational depth rare among his contemporaries. At the same time, his art reflects a broader ambition: to elevate the ordinary into the emblematic, merging natural accuracy with expressive force. Today, Ikka’s crow paintings are prized by collectors and studied as important examples of Meiji-period nihonga, where fidelity to nature combines with enduring Japanese aesthetic ideals. These folding screens stand as a testament to his originality and his ability to transform a humble subject into a powerful symbol of vitality and freedom.
