S otheby’s is pleased to present the January European Art Sale Part I during Masters Week. An important painting by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, in a frame designed by the artist, a full-length nude by Anders Zorn, and a multi-figure scene at Sainte-Adresse by Alfred Stevens anchor the sale which also includes an exceptional group of Barbizon paintings from a Private New York Collection. Two exemplary animal paintings by Wilhelm Kuhnert, several venetian scenes by Eugen von Blaas, and a collection of Belle Epoque pictures complement a selection of works by Spanish artists and an exceptional pair of sculptures by Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier.
This distinguished selection of paintings from a private New York collection includes significant Barbizon landscapes by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Charles François Daubigny, Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña, and Théodore Rousseau, as well as an intimately scaled forest scene by Camille Pissarro.
Spanning the years between the end of France’s Second Empire (1852-1870) and the beginning of World War I (1914), the Belle Époque was an era characterized by growing economic prosperity, rapid urban development, and increased social mobility in cities across Europe and the United States. A center for fine art, shopping, and theater, as well as the international fashion capital, Paris was also where the world’s luminaries and literati flocked to see and be seen. Artists such as Alfred Stevens, Giovanni Boldini, , Victor Gabriel Gilbert, Laureano Barrau Buño, Henri Gervex, and Paul-César Helleu captured the era’s iconic places and famous personalities; they painted boulevards, boisterous cafes, public gardens, and galleries at the Louvre, among other locales.
