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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.
Artimo Fine Arts
charles-auguste fraikin
Charles-Auguste Fraikin (Herentals 1817-1893 Brussels) Emerging from the Sea Bath White Carrara marble H 123 x W 37 x D 33 cm Provenance: Francis Meyer collection, Switzerland Literature: Fraikin, Charles-Auguste. Catalogue de la galerie. Musée Fraikin de Herenthals offert par l'artiste à sa ville natale l'an 1891. Herentals: Typ. L. Bongaerts-Verbeeck, 1891; Engelen & Marx. La sculpture en Belgique à partir de 1830. Tome III: Devreese-Hecq. Bruxelles : Éditions Ars 2006, pp. 1550-1557 With this work, Charles-Auguste Fraikin celebrates feminine beauty captured in the intimacy of a daily gesture: that modest and natural act of a young woman emerging from the water and wringing out her long hair. The sculptor excels here in the art of suggestion rather than revelation. The delicately fitted drapery clings to the body’s contours whilst gracefully concealing them, playing on the translucency of the marble and the softness of the volumes. The work bears witness to the dual influence of classical ideals and the romantic taste for a sensitive evocation of femininity. Through his treatment of surfaces - silken, clean, almost vibrant - Fraikin achieves a remarkable degree of refinement whilst preserving a clear narrative: that of a moment suspended in time, poised between genre scene and allegory. Emerging from the Sea Bath brilliantly illustrates Fraikin’s ability to combine modesty with sensuality, simplicity with virtuosity, in a sculpture that speaks both to the eye and to the imagination.
Galerie Flak
Yipwon hook figure Korewori river, Papua New Guinea, 19th century or earlier (C-14 test) Carved wood H 200 cm Provenance: Merrin Gallery, New York; Californian artist Tony Berlant collection; acquired from the above in the 1980s; Michael Hamson collection, USA; Dr. Jean-Philippe Beaulieu collection, France; acquired from the previous in 2022
Herwig Simons Fine Arts
Game box with chess and backgammon Eger, 17th century 48 x 48 x 11.5 cm Provenance: Lothar Schmid (1928-2013), German chess Grandmaster Literature: publications World of Art: Art chamber games by the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna Double-sided game box : one side shows a bas-relief depicting the meeting of Aeneas and Dido, accompanied by a Putto. The other side features a chessboard in finely executed marquetry. The interior reveals an elegant backgammon board decorated with double-tailed dolphins. Eger, a Bohemian Free City (now Cheb, Czech Republic), was well known in the 17th century for a specialised type of woodworking, particularly for intarsia panels. This set belonged to Lothar Schmid, the German chess Grandmaster and collector of chess books, boards and pieces. He is best known as the chief arbiter of the World Championship of chess in 1972 between Bobby Fisher and Boris Spassky in Reykjavik.
Serge Schoffel - Art Premier
Sitting male figure Timoto-Cuica, 900-1300 AD Trujillo State, Venezuela Terracotta, pigments H 29 x W 23 x D 17.5 cm Datation: TL test n° 481z12 by the Research Laboratory for Archaeology, Oxford University, United Kingdom, on 7 May 1991 Provenance: Galerie Ferrero, Geneva, 1968; collection Barbier-Mueller, Geneva, Inv. n° 530-2; Sotheby's auction, Paris, collection Barbier-Mueller-Art Précolombien, on 22 and 23 March 2013, n° 265 Literature: Paz, Octavio, Butor, Michel, Barbier, Jean-Paul, Stierlin, Henri, Lavallée, Danièle, Conceição G., Corrêa, Barry, Iris, 1992, Art millénaire des Amériques : de la découverte à l'admiration, 1492-1992, Arthaud, fig. 130, p. 178 & 179; Conceição G., Corrêa, Barry, Iris, 2002, Amazonie précolombienne, Museo Barbier-Mueller de Arte Precolombino, Barcelona, 5 Continents, fig. 4, p. 17; Benson, Elizabeth P., 2003, Trésors de la céramique précolombienne du Museo Barbier-Mueller de Arte Precolombino de Barcelona, Musée Barbier-Mueller et Somogy éditions d’art, fig. 44, p. 52
Dei Bardi Art
Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) Inspired by the Ancient Roman Type III bust of the Emperor Northern Italy, late 16th century Marble H 22.5 x W 16 x D 11 cm H 35 cm (with red marble base) Provenance: private collection, South of France Carved in Northern Italy in the late 16th century, this refined marble head portrays Marcus Aurelius, revered as the emblematic 'philosopher emperor'. Deliberately modeled on the ancient Roman Type III portrait created at the outset of his reign (161–180 AD), it reflects the Renaissance passion for reviving imperial imagery. Its intimate scale points to a cultivated humanist milieu - likely a private studiolo or collector’s cabinet. Responding to antiquarian collecting and humanist scholarship, the sculptor reinterprets the imperial model as an exemplum virtutis for early modern audiences. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, scholars and collectors, deeply engaged with ancient texts and material remains, regarded imperial portraiture as a privileged vehicle of moral exemplarity and aesthetic perfection.
Hartford Fine Art - Lampronti Gallery
Francesco Fracanzano (Monopoli 1612-1656 Naples) The incredulity of Saint Thomas Oil on canvas 143 x 205 cm Literature: R. Causa, La pittura del Seicento a Napoli. Dal naturalismo al barocco, Naples, 1972, S. 976, n° 74; G. De Vito, Fracanziano’s periphrasis in XVII century Neapolitan studies, 2003/2004, pp. 104-105, fig. 2; N. Spinosa, XVII c. paintings in Naples, from Caravaggio to Massimo Stanzione, Naples 2010, p. 281 cat. n° 212; A. Della Ragione, Francesco Fracanzano, 2011, p. 10, fig. 23; N. Spinosa, Da Artemisia a Hackert. La collezione di un antiquario, exh. cat., Reggia di Caserta, Foligno 2019, cat. 9, pp. 18-19; N. Spinosa, Il Maestro degli Annunci ai pastori e i pittori del 'tremendo impasto' (Napoli 1625-1650), Rome 2021, cat. C5, p. 193 (quoting further literature: Cairo, 2011, pp. 203-210. Forgione, p. 233, fig. 12) Exhibition: Da Artemisia a Hackert. La collezione di un antiquario, Reggia di Caserta, 2019-2020
Hoffmans Antiques
Chandelier in the 'Retour d’Égypte' style Paris, early 19th century Attributed to Benjamin Ladouèpe-Dufougerias and the 'Manufacture de Cristaux de Montcenis' Ormoulu, patinated and fire-gilt bronze for twelve candles H 130 cm - Ø circa 80 cm Provenance: private European collection This magnificent chandelier exemplifies the short-lived yet influential 'Retour d’Égypte' style, which emerged in the wake of Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign (1798–1801). At its centre stands an amphora-shaped patinated urn, crowned with a flaming finial and surmounted by a pinecone. From the urn’s body spring twelve elegantly curved candle arms arranged in two tiers, richly ornamented with foliage motifs and set between four stylised Egyptian masks. The chandelier is suspended by four chains leading to an imposing corona adorned with leonine masks and voluted floral decoration. The style was largely shaped by the architects Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, whose neoclassical designs laid the foundation for this decorative vocabulary. It endured only briefly before giving way to the Empire style with the establishment of Napoleon and the First French Empire. Provenance and Comparanda: A closely related chandelier for twelve lights, attributed to the Manufacture de Cristaux de la Reine, is preserved in the collections at Versailles, formerly installed in Marie-Antoinette’s inner cabinet at the Petit Trianon.
Kunsthaus Kende
Pair of George I Britannia silver tea caddies John Farnell, London, 1720 Engraved sterling silver H 12.5 cm 240.3 g and 237.4 g Provenance: private collection, North America The smooth, octagonal body merging into the correspondingly smooth shoulder. The lid finished with a twisted baluster. The base, which can be pulled out for filling, is only marked with a maker’s mark, the lid is unmarked. The bodies are hallmarked on the underside of the back. The contemporary coat of arms engraved on the front commemorates the marriage of a gentleman of the Dove family (who were based in East Burgholt in the county of Suffolk) and a lady of the Pierse family (whose family was based in Alston in the county of Warwickshire). An attractively preserved, early Britannia silver pair of tea caddies with a beautifully preserved, original surface.
robertaebasta
Alessandro Mendini (Milan, 1931-2019) 'Libreria scultura' prototype of modular bookcase/display for Swatch, Italy 1994 Lacquered wood, coloured, laminated, chromed and satin steel H 214 x W 250 x D 40 cm Unique piece Certificate of authenticity by Mrs Elisa Mendini and Mrs Fulvia Mendini Provenance: private collection, Italy
Desmet Fine Arts
Pietra dura table top Coloured marble, alabaster and onyx Roman workshop, circa 1565-1600 H 6 x W 104.5 x D 83 cm Accompanied by Art Loss Register certificate: S00253658 Provenance: private collection, Lombardy (Italy) The pietra dura tabletop represents a symbiosis that evokes the rediscovery of the ancient world. The colored marbles used all originate from ancient Roman marble, brought to Rome from across the Roman Empire as early as the 3rd century BCE. In late 16th-century Rome, artists repurposed columns and all manner of these ancient Roman artifacts, reshaping them into sumptuous tabletops to decorate the grand palazzi. This work visualizes how 16th-century Rome sought to reclaim the identity and power of the great Roman Empire, and it must be fully understood within the context of the decoration of St. Peter’s Basilica, when Rome was once again regarded as the center of the world. The patterns are architecturally and geometrically designed to showcase the rarest marbles to their fullest effect. In this specific example, around 1800, the edge underwent restoration, during which the finest artists of the time added a black decorative band. Their aim was to frame what was already spectacular with a dignified restoration. Although created in the late 16th century, this piece radiates two millennia of superiority—politically, socially, artistically, and art historically.