Kangxi blue & white porcelains @ Nagel Auctions. Fine Asian Art. May 7th 2010

A rare pair of erotic-subject gu-shaped blue and white porcelain vases, China, Kangxi period. © 2010 Nagel - Auction

H. 26,1 cm. The middle section with Scenes from the Romance of the Western Chamber, the bases painted with erotic scenes. Est. 18 000 € Lot sold 35 000 €

Provenance: Christie's London, 7.4.1997, Lot 25

A fine and large triple-gourd-shaped blue and white porcelain vase, China, Kangxi period.  © 2010 Nagel - Auction

H. 69,5 cm. Est. 15 000 € Lot sold 20 000 €

Property from an old German private collection, purchased in the 1970'ies at Lempertz, Cologne, the matching bottle vase as a pair from the Eugene O. Perkins collection; Christie's N.Y., 2.6.1989. Lot 49

'Selected Porcelain of the Flourishing Qing Dynasty at the Palace Museum, Beijing 1994, no. 5

A fine blue and white porcelain plate, China, Kangxi period, 17th century. © 2010 Nagel - Auction

D. 32,9 cm. Few small glaze frits to rim, good condition - Est. 1 500 € Lot sold 12 000 €

Property from an important South German private collection, the proceeds of the sale will be donated to the Linden Museum, Stuttgart

A large blue and white porcelain wine ewer and cover, China, leef mark, Kangxi period. © 2010 Nagel - Auction

L. 25,8 cm. Est 1 000 € Lot sold 6 000 €

Property from an important South German private collection, the proceeds of the sale will be donated to the Linden Museum, Stuttgart - Old inventory number at the base

A blue and white porcelain plate depicting a scene from the play 'The Golden Thread Pond' (Jin Xian Chi), China,Shunzi/early Kangxi period. © 2010 Nagel - Auction

D. 36,7 cm - Est. 2 000 € Lot sold 5 000 €

Cf. 'Seventeenth Century Jingdezhen Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum and the Butler Collctions', Shanghai Museum

A blue and white dragon porcelain dish, China, Kangxi six-character mark and of the period. © 2010 Nagel - Auction

D. 16,8 cm - Est. 4 000 € Lot sold 4 500 €

Property from an old German private collection, purchased in Berlin in the 1970'ies

Cf. 'Cobalt Treasures - The Bell Collection of Chinese Blue and White Porcelain', Gardiner Museum of Ceramic

A pair of blue and white and café-au-lait-glazed gourd-shaped porcelain vases, China, Kangxi period. © 2010 Nagel - Auction

H. 20,7 cm. One vase with restoration to mouth - Est. 4500  Lot sold 4 000 €

A group of three blue and white porcelain vases and covers, China, Lingzhi marks, Kangxi period. © 2010 Nagel - Auction

H. ca. 23 cm, one knob of a cover restucked, few small frits or chips - Est. 500 € Lot sold 1 400 €

Property from a German private collection

A blue and white porcelain plate, China, early Kangxi period. © 2010 Nagel - Auction

Short Hairline to rim - Est. 850 € Lot sold 800 €

Nagel Auctions. Fine Asian Art. May 7th 2010 www.auction.de

Vanités en toiles, enluminure et dessin @ Delorme - Collin du Bocage - Paris

École française du XVIIe siècle, Nature morte aux crânes

Toile. 36,5 x 53 cm - Estimation : 10 000 €

Attribué à Frans Francken le Jeune (1581 - 1641) Le mort jouant du violon

Panneau de chêne, une planche, non parqueté. 16,5 x 13,5 cm

Reprise du tableau conservé au Historisches Museum de Francfort dont il existe de nombreuses versions ( voir U. Härting, Frans Franken der Jüngere, Freren, 1989, n° 403, reproduit). RM. Estimation : 5 000 €

Provenance : Collection Noseda

Exposition : Galleria Pesaro, Milan, 1929.

École du XIXe siècle, dans le goût de la nature morte hollandaise du XVIIe siècle.

Crâne avec casque, partitions de musique, instrument, sablier, montre et bouquet de fleurs. Huile sur panneau. 34 x 26,5 cm - Estimation : 3 000 €

École du nord, début XVIIIe siècle. Nature morte au crâne

Huile sur panneau. Panneau aminci contrecollé sur carton du XIXe siècle. 14 x 18,5 cm - Estimation : 2 000 €

Enluminure double face sur parchemin figurant probablement les quatre tempéraments sur une face. France, fin XVe- début XVIe siècle.

Inscriptions « colère », « mort », « mélancolie » et « joie ». Deux enfants tenant une feuille avec lettrine sont représentés au revers.. 11 x 8 cm - Estimation : 500 €

École allemande vers 1800, Vanité au crâne

Crayon noir et lavis gris. 12,5 x 9,5 cm. RM - Estimation : 150 €

Delorme - Collin du Bocage - Paris. Vente du Vendredi 28 mai 2010. Expert ARTS CONSEILS Madame Aurélie MAURICE. Pour tout renseignement, veuillez contacter la maison de ventes au 01 58 18 39 05 ou au 01 48 00 20 01 pendant l'exposition et la vente

Christie's to Offer Syd Levethan: The Longridge Collection in London

The Longridge Collection is one of the most prominent and distinguished collections of British and Northern European decorative arts. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

LONDON.- Christie’s announced that they will offer Syd Levethan – The Longridge Collection in London on 10 and 11 June 2010. One of the most prominent and distinguished collectors of British and Northern European decorative arts, the late Syd Levethan assembled the Longridge Collection over a period of 30 years and was dedicated to acquiring only the best works of art available to him. He created one of the most comprehensive collections of English delftware, slipware, textiles, medieval bronzes, metalwork, ivory carvings and intricately carved boxes. The collection will offer 300 lots and is expected to realise in excess of £4 million, with individual estimates from £500 to £350,000.

Andrew McVinish, Director of Private Collection sales at Christie’s, London: “We are honoured to be able to present to the market this extraordinary collection assembled by Syd Levethan. This is one of the most outstanding collections of European decorative art, ceramics and furniture, amassed by an individual determined to acquire the best. As a result, every work boasts impeccable quality, and provenance, with many of the items having been acquired at the historic sales of celebrated collections including the `Rous Lench’ Collection, the Billington Collection, the Kassabaum Collection, the Chorley Collection and the Richmond Collection. We look forward to welcoming collectors to Christie’s in June for the auction, which offers the rare chance to acquire historically important treasures of European decorative art.”

Highlights of the Longridge Collection
• Delftware production began in Britain in the 16th century and was introduced from Holland. The collection to be presented at Christie’s is one of the finest ever offered at auction and includes chargers, punchbowls candlesticks, tankards, jugs, wine bottles, drug jars and table wares, all dating to the 1600s and 1700s, many of which are dated and inscribed and commemorate specific reigns of monarchs or historic events. Delftware forms the largest part of the Longridge Collection, among the many important pieces offered are an English delftware polychrome Royal armorial heart-shaped apothecary's tile dated 1664 (estimate: £70,000 to £100,000). Over 20 chargers and wares painted with portraits of the reigning monarchs of the Houses of Stuart and Hannover (estimates range from £10,000 to £120,000). Further highlights include a London delft pharmacy jar with the Arms of the Worship Society of Apothecaries, dated 1656 (estimate £50,000-80,000) from a group of seven pharmacy wares; and a London delft ‘bleu Persan’ posset pot and cover, circa 1680 (estimate: £25,000 to £40,000).

An English delftware polychrome Royal armorial heart-shaped apothecary's tile dated 1664. Estimate: £70,000 to £100,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

Of globular form with flared cylindrical neck and grooved blue loop handle, painted predominantly in blue with the half-length portrait of Charles II and Queen Catherine in their coronation robes flanked by the initials CR<->2 and ^DQK with manganese hair and robes lightly enriched in ochre with the initials M/H.S./1662 above within a ogival cartouche, on a ground of chinoiserie figures and turreted buildings among rockwork and trees between blue band and line rims, the shoulder with a raised band of cable-ornament, the neck with a pinched lip flanked by two dimples and with a band of scrolling flowers and foliage, the lower part with a band of chevron and foliage-ornament on a spreading circular foot - 11 5/8 in. (29.5 cm.) high

Provenance: Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 22 March 1960, lot 15.
Thomas Burn, Rous Lench Court; Christie's, London, 29 May 1990, lot 5.

Literature: Leslie B. Grigsby, The Longridge Catalogue, Vol. II, D296.
Leslie B. Grigsby, 'Dated English Delftware and Slipware in the Longridge Collection', The Magazine Antiques, 155, June 1999, pp. 878-879, pl. 5.
Louis L. Lipski and Michael Archer, Dated English Delft, London, 1984, p. 220, no. 974.

Notes: Only one other jug bearing a royal portrait is recorded and is dated 1660, the year Charles II was restored to the throne. The present jug commemorates his marriage to Catherine of Braganza in 1662. After a proxy marriage in Portugal on 23 April, Catherine arrived at Portsmouth a few weeks later and in May, the royal couple were married in two ceremonies, a secret Catholic ceremony and a public Anglican ceremony on 21 May.

A London delft pharmacy jar with the Arms of the Worship Society of Apothecaries, dated 1656. Estimate £50,000-80,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

Painted with the arms of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in blue, ochre and manganese with the motto OPI FER QVE PER ORBEM DICOR 1656 below, within a ribbon cartouche above a winged and tasselled cherub's head between bands of radiating lappets, the reverse with flowers, fruit and pomegranates between blue-line, ovolo and dot-ornament bands - 14 1/8 in. (35.8 cm.) high

Provenance: Mrs. Radford.
J.V. Vizcarra.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 3 June 1985, lot 204.
John Philip Kassebaum; Sotheby's, London, 7 October 1992, lot 77.

Literature: Leslie B. Grigsby, The Longridge Catalogue, Vol. II, D394.
Bryony Hudson (Ed.), English Delftware Drug Jars, The Collection of the Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, London, 2006, p. 83 (unillustrated).
Louis L. Lipski and Michael Archer, Dated English Delftware, London, 1984, p. 366, no. 1593.

Notes: See Louis L. Lipski and Michael Archer, op.cit., pp. 366 & 367, nos. 1592-1594 for the only other dated examples of 1647 and 1658. See also Jonathan Horne, English Pottery and Works of Art, London, 2003, no. 03/3 for a large blue and white jar with similar foliage decoration and borders. See also the example dated 1647 in the collection of the Museum of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, illustrated by Bryony Hudson (Ed.), English Delftware Drug Jars, London, 2006, pp. 82-83.

London delft ‘bleu Persan’ posset pot and cover, circa 1680. Estimate: £25,000 to £40,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

Of broad goblet form with short cylindrical spout and two loop handles with white dash-ornament and scrolls, the body painted in white with two Oriental figures, one holding a fan among boulders and grasses, the cover similarly decorated with a seated figure, with a central double-knopped finial, on a knopped stem and spreading circular foot with a band of circle and scroll-ornament - 10½ in. (26.6 cm.) high (2)

Provenance: With Mark and Marjory Allen, New Hampshire, early 1980s.
With Marie Creem, Plandome, NY.
With Mark and Marjory Allen, New Hampshire, 1996.

Literature: Leslie B. Grigsby, The Longridge Catalogue, Vol. II, D278.

• Slipware is earthenware decorated with coloured ‘slip’, or liquid clay which became particularly popular in Britain during the reign of King Charles II. Syd Levethan assembled one of the finest private collections in the world, highlights of which include a Staffordshire slipware inscribed and dated dish by Ralph Toft made in 1676 (estimate: £70,000 to £100,000). Further examples include an English incised slipware Royal armorial dish from 1748, probably made in Barnstaple, North Devon (estimate: £50,000 to £80,000) and an English press-moulded slipware dish circa 1700-1730, probably made in Staffordshire (estimate: £20,000 to £30,000).

A Staffordshire slipware inscribed and dated dish by Ralph Toft made in 1676. Estimate: £70,000 to £100,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

The pale-ochre ground decorated in light and dark-brown slip edged in dark-brown with cream slip dot-ornament, the centre with a soldier, his arms raised holding two swords above his head flanked by two stylised flowers, his body by two crowned female heads within a trellis-pattern border, the lower part inscribed RALPH TOFT 1676 within a rectangular cartouche - 17½ in. (44.5 cm.) diam.

Provenance: With Frank Partridge, London.
Private Collection, Philadelphia.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 15 October 1996, lot 345.

Literature: Leslie B. Grigsby, The Longridge Catalogue, Vol. I, S2.
Ronald G. Cooper, English Slipware Dishes (London, 1984), p. 74, no. 7.
Leslie B. Grigsby, 'Dated English Delftware and Slipware in the Longridge Collection', The Magazine Antiques, Vol. 155, June 1999, cover illustration.

Notes: For a list of seventeen dishes by Ralph Toft, see Cooper ibid., pp. 74 & 75, and pl. 132 for a similar example dated 1677 in the British Museum, recorded by Wallace Elliot in his papers held in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

An English incised slipware Royal armorial dish from 1748, probably made in Barnstaple, North Devon. Estimate: £50,000 to £80,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

The pale-brown ground with raised cream slip and incised decoration, the centre with the crowned royal arms and supporters with a stylised pineapple below, the royal motto including the date 1748 and initials GR within a border of incised stiff leaves and flowerheads, the underside left unglazed - 18 5/8 in. (47.3 cm.) diam

Provenance

Thomas Boynton, FSA, Yorkshire, sale Butters & Sons, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, 23-24 March 1920.
Philadelphia Private Collection
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 15 October 1996, lot 346.

Literature

Leslie B. Grigsby, The Longridge Catalogue, Vol. I, S9.
Leslie B. Gigsby, 'Dated English Delftware and Slipware in the Longridge Collection', The Magazine Antiques, 155, June 1999, p. 880-881, pl. X.
Ronald G. Cooper, English Slipware Dishes, London, 1984, p. 130, pl. 156.
John Eliot Hodgkin, Examples of Early English Pottery Named, Dated and Inscribed, London, 1891, no. 132.

Exhibited

London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of a Collection of Early English Earthenware and other Works of Art, 1914, pp. XI and 43, pl. XIX, Case C, no. 5.

Lot Notes

An inscribed and dated royal armorial colliers jug, 'Thomas Fields 1735', almost certainly by the same hand was in the A.T. Morley Hewitt Collection, sale Sotheby's, London, 10 February 1959, lot 17, illustrated by Leslie B. Grigsby, English Slip-Decorated Earthenware at Williamsburg, Williamsburg 1993, p.19, pl.14 and pp. 34-35, pls. 38 & 39. The author suggests Fields may be the potter rather than the owner of the jug. Another jug signed and dated 'John Hockin 1748' from the Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little Collection; Sotheby's, New York, 21 October 1994, lot 514, appears to be by the same hand.

An English press-moulded slipware dish circa 1700-1730, probably made in Staffordshire. Estimate: £20,000 to £30,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

The cream slip ground decorated in raised dark and light-brown slip and edged with cream feather-ornament with a cockerel flanked by a stylised thistle and rose with a diamond ornament below, a tulip between its head and tail, the raised initials TC (?) below, within a tooled serrated rim - 11 3/8 in. (28.9 cm.) diam.

Provenance: Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 27 May 1986, lot 33.

Literature: Leslie B. Grigsby, The Longridge Catalogue, Vol. I, S22.

Notes: No other example of this unusual combination of decoration appears to be recorded. It is possible that the rose and thistle may be symbolic of the Act of Union between England and Scotland in 1707, alternatively the thistle may be Jacobite in significance, symbolising hope for the return of the Stuart line to the throne. Leslie B. Grigsby illustrates a slipware dish similarly decorated with a crowned bird before a tulip, see The Henry H. Weldon Collection, English Pottery 1650-1800 London, 1990, p. 160, no. 71.

• The collection also features an impressive range of furniture, tankards, bowls and works of art and one of the greatest private collections of early treen (an ancient term for a variety of objects hewn and turned from wood). The Hickstead Place Wassail Bowl is possibly the earliest survivor of its type having been made circa 1600. Turned from sycamore, it was originally in Hickstead Place in Twineham, Sussex, the seat of the Royalist Stapley family at the turn of the 17th century. Sold in 1951 together with six Chinese decorated bowls for three pounds and five shillings, it is expected to realise £20,000 to £30,000 at Christie’s in June. A rare Norwegian burr Birch peg tankard from the workshop of Samuel Halvorsen Fanden is dated 1693 and has been adapted at a later date with a silver mount and stand for the Owen-Bulkeley family of Tedsmore Hall, West Felton, Shropshire. It is expected to realise £40,000 to £60,000. A Charles I Turner’s throne chair made circa 1640, most likely in Wales, carries an estimate of £10,000 to £15,000. Known as Turner’s chairs due to the fact that each part is turned on a pole-lathe by a wood-turner, this is a particularly fine example made from Yew wood. A German bronze figure of a Landsknecht, circa 1520-1540, will be offered with an estimate of £20,000 to £30,000.

The Hickstead Place Wassail Bowl, circa 1600. Estimate £20,000 - £30,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

Decorated overall with incised pyrographic roundels and intersected segments, the tapering bowl supported on a baluster knopped stem and circular spreading foot, the slightly domed cover with everted rim, surmounted by a spice cup knop of onion dome shape, with conical-shaped finial to its cover - 7 7/8 in. (20 cm.) diameter; height overall 16 in. (45 cm.) (2)

Provenance: Hickstead Place, Twineham, Sussex, thence by descent.
Property from Hickstead Place, Graves, Son & Pilcher, 30 April 1951. [Included in a lot with 'six Chinese bowls of various sizes' sold for £3/5/0.]
Oak, Country Furniture, Folk Art and Works of Art, Christie's, South Kensington, 3 November 1999, lot 998.

Literature: Viscountess Wolseley, 'Historic Houses of Sussex', The Sussex County Magazine, Vol X, January-December 1936.
Edward H. Pinto, Treen and other Wooden Bygones, 1968, fig. 29., pp. 50-1.

Exhibited: Horsham, Sussex, The Horsham Museum, 1950-1980.

Notes: Edward Pinto records this wassail bowl as one of the earliest survivors of its type. Its incised ornament is similar to the later recorded 'armorial cups' of James I's reign, and as such acts as a link and forerunner to these much admired and coveted treen vessels of the early 17th century.

The act of wassailing is first recorded in Britain in the 5th century, but this design of very deep and slightly tapering bowl, on a stem and wide circular foot, for the purposes of wassailing, appears to emanate predominantly from the 17th century. The use of sycamore in the present example has allowed for its generous proportions, the slower growing and narrower beam fruitwoods such as pear (woods more readily associated with the later 'armorial cups') could have rarely borne such an example. Later examples in lignum vitae obviously exist in much larger sizes, but these appear not to pre-date the second quarter of the 17th century.

Hickstead Place is a small two-storey manor house of brick with a Horsham slabbed roof. In the 13th century it was owned by Matthew de Cumbe, and by the end of the 16th century the manor was acquired by the Stapleys of Twineham.

A rare Norwegian burr Birch peg tankard from the workshop of Samuel Halvorsen Fanden dated 1693 and later adapted with a silver mount. Estimate £40,000 to £60,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

The cover carved with two coats-of-arms and the initials 'G.T.' and 'K.L.', the date '1693' below, within a border of fruiting vines and the head of an animal, the thumbpiece carved with the figure of a bear standing four square, the terminal of the handle carved with a posy, the sides of the tankard carved with vignettes within laurel wreath borders, depicting scenes of Diana and Endymion, Apollo flaying Marsyas, and Fortune, within a continuous landscape of animals, birds, buildings and trees, the feet modelled as hops, the underside carved with a church, the later silver-gilt lining with five pegs, the inner lid also later applied with a silver-gilt roundel engraved with a coat-of-arms and mottos; the associated silver-gilt mounted oak stand, the rim cast and chased with the numerous coats-of-arms and dated names, the centre applied with a plaque engraved with an inscription, the underside of the stand on claw and ball feet, the mounts with mark of Edward, Edward, John and William Barnard, London, 1831 - 7¼ in. (18.5 cm.) high; 8½ in. (21.5 cm.) at widest point

The arms in the cover are those of Bulkeley quartering Owen for Thomas Bulkeley Bulkeley-Owen (1790-1867) of Tedsmore. The mottos in Welsh and Latin are ERYR ERYROD ERYRI (The Eagle of the Eagles of North Wales) for Owen and NEC TEMERE NEC TIMIDE (Neither Rashley nor Timidly) for Bulkeley

The inscription on the stand reads 'This is made of the wood of the celebrated Oak called CEUBREN YR ELLYLL in the hollow of which tradition relates HOWELL SELE was immured by OWEN GLYNDWR. It grew in the grounds at NANNU near DOLLGELLEU, and was blown down 13th July 1813'.

The numerous coats-of-arms around rim of the stand the record the ancient lineage of the Bulkeley-Owen family who derive from Edwin ap Grono (d.1073) Lord of Tegaingl, co. Flint, founder of the 12th Noble Tribe of North Wales and Powys. He was lineally descended from Hywel Dda (Howel the Good), King of Wales (d.950).

Provenance: Thomas Bulkeley Bulkeley-Owen (1790-1867) of Tedsmore Hall, West Felton, Shropshire and then by descent to his son
The Revd. Thomas Mainwaring Bulkeley Bulkeley-Owen (1826-1910), also of Tedsmore Hall, West Felton, Shropshire who married in 1880 the Hon. Fanny Mary Katherine (1845-1927), only child of Ralph, 1st Lord Harlech and widow of Lloyd, eldest son of the 3rd Lord Kenyon, and then by descent to
Anonymous sale; Woolley & Wallis, Salisbury, 25 April 1991, lot 263.

Notes:

The Tankard

Similar Norwegian birch tankards attributed to Halvor Tordsen Fanden and to his son Samuel Halvorsen Fanden are illustrated in P. Gjaerder, Norske Drikkekar av Tre, Oslo, 1982, figs. 706-709. An almost identical example was sold, Sotheby's, London, 27 April 2001, lot 51, carved with the Evangelists within similar garland borders.

The Stand

The stand for the tankard was commissioned by Thomas Bulkeley Bulkeley-Owen (1790-1867) from the leading London firm of Edward Barnard and Sons in 1831 a year after inheriting the estate of Tedsmore from his father Bulkeley Hatchett (d.1830). Thomas was born at Shrewsbury in 1790, and adopted the surnames of Bulkeley-Owen in lieu of Hatchett, this was later confirmed by royal license in 1848. He married in 1824, Marianne, eldest daughter of the Rev. E. Tuelwall, of Llanbedr Hall, Ruthin and they had a son and heir, Bulkeley Hatchett, who was born in 1825 with a daughter a second son who succeeded his brother.

A legend records that in 1402 Hywel Sele, 8th Lord of Nannau, a royalist, was killed by his rebel cousin Owain Glyndwr (c.1354-1416) who concealed the body in the hollow of an oak where it remained undiscovered for forty years. This oak was named 'Ceubren yr Ellyll' (the hollow tree of the demon) and was, until its destruction during a storm in 1813, the terror of the superstitious. The story was well told in Thomas Pennant's Tour of Wales, vol. I, p.348 and inspired Sir Walter Scott to write Marmion. After the fall of the tree many objects were fashioned from its timber. These include a pair of Regency silver-mounted treen oak cups, with mounts by Thomas and James Phipps, London, 1815 and a pair of Regency silver-mounted treen oak stands, the mounts by John Reily, London, 1825 made for Sir Robert Williames Vaughan of Nannau (1768-1843) which were sold Christie's London, 13 November 1997, lots 6 and 7. The National Museum of Wales, Cardiff has in its collection a set of six silver mounted acorn shaped cups of 1824 made to celebrated the coming of age of Sir Robert Vaughan's eldest son.

A Charles I Turner’s throne chair made circa 1640 almost certainly Welsh. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

Profusely turned throughout and applied with buttons, some ebonised, the triangular oak seat with turkey-work cushion, the substantial waisted arm terminals each struck five times with initails HT and within a punched border, the punched decoration running down the front legs at intervals, losses to buttons
48 in. (122 cm.) high overall; the seat 21¾ in. (55 cm.) high; 20 in. (51 cm.) wide between posts

Notes: This type of chair is known as a Turner's chair, so called because each part is turned on a pole-lathe by a wood-turner. Most commonly made of ash or yew-tree, but sometimes in fruit or walnut, the earliest appearance of such chairs is lost in time but they have been recorded throughout England and Wales, Northern Europe and Scandinavia, where some of the earliest can be found in churches, dated by some historians to the 13th century.
Two similar examples are illustrated in Victor Chinnery Oak Furniture, The British Tradition, 1979, pp. 93-94, figs. 2.76 and 2.78. The same two chairs also feature in Richard Bebb Welsh Furniture 1250-1950, 2007, pp. 139-140, figs. 217 and 219, both with Welsh provenance.

A German bronze figure of a Landsknecht, circa 1520-1540, Estimate £20,000-£30,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

Depicted standing wearing a plumed hat and formerly holding a spear in his proper right hand; on an integrally cast naturalistic circular bronze plinth and a modern octagonal ebonised wood base with a paper label inscribed '12'; dark brown patina with medium brown high points - 12 in. (30.5 cm.) high; 16½ in. (42 cm.) high overall

The collection also includes one of the most impressive groups of 17th century English needlework to be found in private hands. The collection celebrates the best in English needlework of the 17th century, the work of both domestic and professional embroiderers. A high level of skills was required of young ladies who began with samplers at an early age and worked their way up towards their embroidered casket. This collection includes both charmingly naïve and sophisticated examples of the needlewoman’s art.

Belonging very clearly to the latter category is the magnificent Charles II embroidered mirror surround, the cover lot from the ground-breaking Richmond Collection sale held in these rooms in 1987. The cover is worked with a portrait of a King and Queen, possibly an idealized Henrietta Maria and Charles I, alongside emblems of harmony, probably conceived as a celebration of the institution of marriage. The mirror is initialed MP, possibly for Margaret Penn, the sister of the founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, and is expected to realize £80,000-120,000.

A Charles II neddlework table mirror, circa 1670-80. Estimate £80,000-120,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

The ivory silk ground worked with a King and Queen in fine robes embellished with seed pearls and lace, with a lady playing the lute above, the top corners worked with castles with mica windows, the lower corners with purl-work lions, spangled throughout, the table strut to the reverse lacking worked with the initials MP in seed pearls - 24 x 19.5in. (59 x 48cm.)

Provenance: An Important Collection of Needlework, The Richmond Collection, Christie's, South Kensington, 23 June 1987, lot 159.

Literature: Illustrated London News, 19 March 1932.

Notes: The monogramme 'MP' may stand for Margaret Penn, sister of William Penn (d.1718), the founder of Pennsylvania. The Richmond Collection included a purse belonging to William Penn (See Christie's, South Kensington, 23 June 1987, lot 72). Although no records exist to confirm that the mirror and purse shared the same provenance, it is quite possible that they did.

The Lady playing the lute usually represents Harmony, suggesting that this embroidery was intended as a celebration of marriage. Margaret married Sir Thomas Lowther in 1666-7. Her brother married in 1672.

The star of the collection is a magnificent embroidered casket dating from the first half of the 17th century, embroidered with the story of Joseph, and estimated at £150,000-£350,000. Most intriguingly, the casket was found to contain a silk sweet-meat purse with the embroideress’s name, Jean Morris, and the date 1600, a matching embroidered quill or knife case, a book mark and two silk-bound quills. These undoubtedly were all the work of the same needlewoman, the unknown Jean Morris, leading us to wonder whether she also embroidered the magnificent casket in which her prized needlework was found.

Several other embroidered pictures with Richmond provenance and many others worked with the biblical themes so popular with both Syd Levethan and the needlewomen of the 17th century are represented in the collection, ranging in price from £3000 to £30,000.

A magnificent Charles II needlework casket. Estimate £150,000-£300,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2010.

Worked in coloured silks on an ivory silk ground with The Story of Joseph, the front showing his brothers being thrown into a castle, the back showing Joseph being thrown into the well and sold into slavery, the side with Pharoah's dream; with raised work and moss work, embellished with seed pearls and lace; the inside lined in salmon pink silk and marbled paper, with a print of a country scene, signed Aubrey Exe'd; the inside containing four glass bottles and comprising compartments for letters and ink wells, the whole removing to reveal a bottom compartment lined with pink, padded silk; with an associated purse worked with roses in green and pink silks, embroidered 'IEAN MORRIS 1660'; with a matching needlework pen or knife case, two silk-wrapped goose quill pens and a bookmark of pink, yellow and blue silk - The casket: 5.5 x 14 x 10 in. (14 x 35 x 25.4 cm.)

Provenance: Christie's South Kensington, 23 October, 1990, lot 159.

Notes: The Story of Joseph can be seen on another casket of similar date held by the Metropolitan Museum and illustrated on the cover of English Embroidery From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700. The side panels of both caskets show the 'Dream of Pharaoh' bedroom scene, and appear to have been taken from the same print source. These two caskets illustrate that professional workshops not only assembled caskets but also distributed designs.

The book mark found in the casket, presumably also worked by the unknown Jean Morris, can be compared to that illustrated in Seligman & Hughes, Domestic Needlework, plate XVI, Item D, catalogued as English, circa 1620-50. See also plate XXII, Item I, a quill pen; Plate XXX for a casket with The Story of Joseph in the Percival Griffiths Collection.

The print lining the box is signed Aubrey, whose dates are contemporary with the casket. For a discussion of the role of professionals in casket making, see Kathleen Staples, Metropolitan Museum of Art, English Embroidery, Chapter 2, p.29.

Christie’s condamnée à verser 8,5 millions de dollars à Halsey Minor

Halsey Minor (2004) - photographe jdlasica - Licence Creative Commons

SAN FRANCISCO (ETATS-UNIS) [26.05.10] – L’homme d’affaires et millionnaire américain, Halsey Minor, sort vainqueur de son procès l’opposant à la maison de vente Christie’s US. Cette dernière doit lui verser une indemnisation de 8,5 millions de dollars pour fraude et violation de contrat.

Le juge William Alsup du tribunal de San Francisco a ordonné à la maison de vente Christie’s US de payer 8,57 millions de dollars – environ 7 millions d’euros – de dommages et intérêts à Halsey Minor, directeur de CNet Network Inc. D’après le Wall Street Journal le montant important compense selon la cour la perte financière subie par Minor sur la revente de ses œuvres pendant les cinq mois – de mai à novembre 2008 – durant lesquels Christie’s a gardé les pièces en garantie d’un arriéré de paiement.

En mai 2008, peu avant le début de la crise économique, Minor qui devait déjà 12 millions de dollars à Christie’s pour l’achat de nombreuses œuvres – dont un portrait de Grace Kelly par Andy Warhol – confia à la maison de vente le soin de vendre un lot de six œuvres de Richard Prince de sa collection dont un important tableau intitulé « Nurse in Hollywood # 4 » - adjugé 6,5 millions de dollars en mai 2010 chez Phillips de Pury. Au total, les œuvres étaient estimées à 25 millions de dollars. La maison de vente accepta de trouver un ou des acquéreurs dans un délai de deux semaines selon un document apporté pour preuve lors du procès.

En août 2008, Minor demande la restitution de ses œuvres qui n’avaient pas trouvé preneur. La maison de vente a répondu que ces derniers lui seraient retournés prochainement alors qu’elle avait clairement décidé – des courriers électroniques entre le personnel le prouvent – de ne pas les lui remettre tant que Minor ne serait pas acquitté de la totalité de sa dette. Il lui restait alors 7 millions de dollars d’arriérés. Les œuvres lui sont finalement retournées en novembre 2008 et Minor attaqua Christie’s en décembre.

La somme du préjudice est notable et peut paraître excessive quant on sait que Minor fait partie de la liste des « persona non grata » de Christie’s et de Sotheby's, c’est-à-dire qu’il lui est interdit de vendre, d’enchérir ou d’acheter dans ces deux maisons de vente.

Pour justifier sa décision, la cour a mentionné l’attitude indélicate de Christie’s envers Minor au sujet de sa décision de garder les œuvres en garantie accusant ainsi la maison de vente de fraude pour avoir détenu à tort la propriété d’autrui. De son côté, Christie’s envisage un pourvoi en appel. www.artclair.com

Richard Prince , 'Nurse in Hollywood #4' Acrylic and inkjet on canvas.  69 x 42 in. (175.3 106.7 cm).   Signed, titled and dated “2004 R. Prince Nurse in Hollywood #4” on the overlap. Sold at $6,466,500. photo Phillips de Pury & Company

The Nurse. She is historically typecast as an icon of goodness, a benevolent caregiver and healer. However the 20th century has played with that role and eroticized it, casting her as a different character: a lustful and naughty object of sexual desire. It is this striking tension between the good and the wicked that Richard Prince so astutely captures in his Nurse series and what makes these works such intriguing and sought after paintings.

Richard Prince. The name alone conjures up a whirlwind of images, all indelibly cemented in the culture of American kitsch and mass media. One cannot hear his name without picturing his most recognizable icons: the cowboy, the Marlboro Man and of course, his most coveted, the Nurse. The visual iconography of Prince’s work over the last thirty years spans the gamut of the American vernacular from the opulent to the seedy. His early photographic representations of lavish luxury items remarked on consumerism while those of almost-naked women splayed across their boyfriends’ motorcycles addressed overt sexuality and gender roles. From his early unadulterated snapshots of cigarette ads to his latest painterly homage to de Kooning, his art re-appropriates and re-imagines what art means and what it can be. Nurse in Hollywood # 4 is the apotheosis of this varied and exceptional career, and is easily the finest piece from his Nurse series.

Prince began his artistic career at Time-Life magazine, clipping articles of potential interest for the writers. What remained, most would have considered useless scraps, but instead Prince saw ready-made art. The simplicity of his genius lay in taking (or in his own words, stealing) these un-authored images, re-photographing them and calling them art. The comparison to the pioneering Marcel Duchamp is powerful and significant. In the same way that Duchamp challenged the preconceptions of the artistic process and of what could be labeled as art for his generation, so does Prince for ours. Duchamp said of his first readymade, the famous Bicycle Wheel, that he “created” it because he enjoyed looking at it. This is a fundamental principle of Prince’s art and is evident in all of his work. Richard Prince believes art should make people feel good and so he creates what he likes.

He first exhibited the Nurse series in 2003 at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York. The show sold out of these highly coveted paintings even before it officially opened. In his introductory essay for the catalogue, Matthew Collings surmises on Prince’s attraction to this new subject:

Some of these nurse’s are blind! Maybe it’s because he’s noticed there’s something going on generally in the series to do with veiled or masked or restrained feeling, and so he occasionally experiments with emphasizing blindness […] And I suppose he gets [the nurses] from book jacket illustrations because he likes the sexy stream in modern ordinary talk, and in ordinary entertainment—he wants to stay close to home. He says a Nurse sometimes emerges fully formed, more or less without struggle. Other times it might be the end of the day, the kids have had their dinner, he’s had some wine, he goes in the studio, puts on Cream or the Velvet Underground, looks at what he did earlier, feels good, gets painting again and then completely mucks it up.

Nurse in Hollywood #4, is not only the most important painting from this series but is also one of Prince’s most glamorous, direct and stunning ones. The viewer experiences sheer pleasure in looking at it. The work is based on the 1965 Jane Converse novel whose spoiler reads: “When a Hollywood producer ‘discovers’ nursing student Kitty Walters he asks her to choose: her dream of becoming a R.N. or every girl’s dream of becoming a star.” In Prince’s painting she does not have to choose: she embodies both the pure and wholesome nurse ready to fill her professional role and the undone vamp with come-hither eyes ready to fill her fantasized role.

Is she a muffled virgin or a brazen vixen? Both. Prince’s nurses are anonymous amalgams of female typecasts from the sexy pinup girl to the pure Florence Nightingale, from virgins to nymphomaniacs, from angels of mercy to angels of death and from Hollywood to Washington. They emerge from the canvas as both predator and prey, all players in the game of sexual desire. The story of Converse’s nurse continues on the back cover of her book, “Her ash-blond hair. Her big brown eyes. Her pert figure. These were only frosting to her personality – personality that was pure whistle bait. So what if Kitty Walters was a nursing student just three months short of graduating? So what if her idea of heaven was the symbol R.N. pinned on a starched white uniform? Phil Harlan wasn’t called “Boy Wonder” for nothing. He was dynamic, magnetic, charming, a glib Svengali whose record of convincing was 100 percent. Phil Harlan would have no trouble turning a dedicated would-be nurse into a determined Hollywood starlet. At least that’s what Phil Harlan thought…”

Converse’s Hollywood Nurse must decide between following her passion of becoming a nurse or falling into the temptations and peril of Hollywood glamour. Of course she must also choose between lovers along the way. Richard Prince’s nurse is a bit bolder than her namesake and the story becomes all about the nurse, our main character, without the distraction of her male suitor leering over her shoulder on the original cover. By obscuring the man with heavy swaths of paint, Prince leaves the viewer alone with our nurse. His brush transforms the original cover (which has been scanned, printed and enlarged onto canvas) with layer upon layer of rich pigment until all that remains are the nurse and the moniker. He uses lush strokes and drips of paint ranging in color from hot bright hues of magenta and turquoise reminiscent of the 1960s to, in this case, darkly mysterious deeper tones of plums, navy blues and chocolate browns. The present work very much pays homage to the canvases of Mark Rothko in both treatment and color. This painterly, layered background creates a potent shadowed stage set from which the now displaced nurse emerges.

Glowing above her, like the Hollywood sign, the title of this work beckons the viewer in—with just one word, evoking a place of seduction and glamour where anything is possible. This symbolism of Hollywood also makes a heady statement to the power and seductiveness of fame and how far people are willing to go to achieve it. This very subject has captured the imagination of some of the most famous artists of the last thirty years including Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha. Like Ruscha, Prince has always been interested in the correlation between image and text. He began incorporating words into his photographs in the mid-1970s and then devoted entire canvases to his Joke paintings. It is no surprise then that the title of the book plays such an integral role in his nurse paintings. Without them, she would have no context other than being a beautiful (or in some cases, sinister), floating figure. The words build a framework around her and create a story and association that continues to unfold every time the viewer looks at the canvas.

Nurse in Hollywood’s striking resemblance to Grace Kelly, a Hollywood icon and beacon of elegance, femininity and beauty is unmistakable. Captured by Warhol in one of his famous pieces, the likeness becomes even more apparent. Grace Kelly is a woman beyond compare and so is this nurse. Prince has given her the liberty of eye contact, something not garnered upon his other nurses whose eyes are generally either averted or covered by a diaphanous veil of white paint. Her brilliant blue eyes and penetrating, direct gaze is confident and overt yet not aggressive, much like the actress herself. The glimmer of seduction hinted at by her eyes is metered by the fact that her eyes are her only means of expression. The mask protects her anonymity but also defaces and silences her. The viewer longs to see what expression she is hiding beneath it and this only heightens the innuendo and drama of the canvas. The darker side of Hollywood, fame and beauty are hinted at by the blood-like drips of burgundy and purple paint that trickle off of her mask and down her shoulders evoking the much gorier side of nursing. Her glowing presence on the canvas stands in high contrast to the shadowy background. She emerges from this rich dark brown set in vibrant strokes of icy lavender and juicy reds. She stops at the front of the picture plane, addressing the viewer with a smoldering stare, her startling blue eyes and white face possessing both an ephemeral beauty and a sinister ghostliness.

What is perhaps most striking about the Nurse in Hollywood #4 is that she is cast to appear more like a doctor, further questioning the gender roles made so poignant by this series. Scrubs have replaced her starched white uniform and her nursing cap is replaced by a surgical cap which covers her hair. All vestiges of femininity, lust and sex are seemingly covered in this painting (except for her eyes) yet instead of dampening the seductive appeal of the work, it heightens it. She is a glamorous Hollywood character, a nurse in disguise.

Always the provocateur, Prince’s art is all about desire. It represents covetousness, of a beautiful woman or of an alpha male, of a luxury watch or a perfectly appointed living room, of sex or of words. The desire is never left unadulterated however – there is always an element of subversion or of something ever-so-slightly out of reach that brings such power to his work. There is always a hint of irony and a sense of humor in Prince’s paintings. A somewhat mysterious figure himself, we can never be quite sure of exactly how ironic Prince is trying to be and this leaves the viewer even more absorbed by his art.

The nurse is a beautiful representation of a fantasy based in reality—a composite embodiment of our culture’s overactive imaginations and cravings. It is an outdated perception yet still holds weight in today’s culture. Therein lays Prince’s strength—his ability to timelessly capture these flash moments in the American cultural vernacular and make them modern. Prince has doctored his nurses so they seem both delicate and glamorous yet still portray an element of delicious vice. And this is exactly what he is so known for—he takes the seemingly banal and elevates it to cult status, creating aesthetically stunning pieces that address the divergence between what is real and what is created. Layered with this depth, Nurse in Hollywood #4 is a seminal piece—Prince has created art for art’s sake and just as he intended, this painting is a provocatively brilliant piece that you just love to look at.

Fall Focus on Spanish Art through Two Frick Presentations

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660), King Philip IV of Spain, 1644, oil on canvas, 51 ⅛ x 39 ⅛ inches, The Frick Collection, New York.

NEW YORK, NY.- The greatest Spanish draftsmen from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century—Ribera, Murillo, and Goya, among them—created works of dazzling idiosyncrasy. These diverse drawings, which may be broadly characterized as possessing a specifically “Spanish manner,” will be the subject of an exclusive exhibition at The Frick Collection in the fall of 2010. The presentation will feature more than fifty of the finest Spanish drawings from public and private collections in the Northeast, among them The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hispanic Society of America, The Morgan Library & Museum, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Opening the show are rare sheets by the early seventeenth-century masters Francisco Pacheco and Vicente Carducho, followed by a number of spectacular red chalk drawings by the celebrated draftsman Jusepe de Ribera.

The exhibition continues with rapid sketches and painting-like wash drawings from the rich oeuvre of the Andalusian master Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, along with lively drawings by Francisco de Herrera the Elder and his son and the Madrid court artist Juan Carreño de Miranda, among others. The second part of the exhibition will present twenty-two sheets by the great draftsman Francisco de Goya, whose drawings are rarely studied in the illuminating context of the Spanish draftsmen who came before him. These works, mostly drawings from his private albums, attest to the continuity between his thematic interests and those of his Spanish forebears, as well as to Goya’s own enormously fertile imagination.

The King at War: Velázquez's Portrait of Philip IV
Painted at the height of Velázquez’s career, the Frick’s King Philip IV of Spain (1644) is one of the artist’s consummate achievements. Contemporary chronicles as well as bills and invoices in Spanish archives indicate that it was painted in a makeshift studio only a few miles from the frontlines of a battle, and that it was completed in just three sittings. The work, which shows its subject dressed in military costume, an atypical depiction, was sent to Madrid where it was used during a victory celebration. Displayed in a church under a rich canopy embroidered in gold, the painting embodied the contemporary idea of monarchy as the divinely sanctioned form of government.

In conjunction with a focus on Spanish art this fall, the Frick offers a dossier presentation on the portrait, which returned this winter from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, having been cleaned for the first time in over sixty years. The gleaming silver brocade covering the king’s crimson cassock is executed in a shockingly free and spontaneous manner, which is almost unparalleled in the painter’s production and can now be better appreciated. The treatment by Michael Gallagher, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge of Paintings Conservation, revealed the dazzling original surface that had been veiled by a yellowing varnish. Additionally, the first technical studies of the painting were undertaken, involving microscopy, X-radiography, and infrared reflectography. Coordinated by Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow Pablo Pérez d’Ors, the Frick’s presentation will place the restored masterpiece in the context of original research and findings resulting from its recent cleaning and examination. It will also shed new light on the function of the painting and the implications of presenting the king as a soldier, while addressing connections between the portrait and other paintings by the artist and his workshop. A thrilling mixture of Spanish Baroque art, politics, war, and religion will come alive at the Frick through examination of this masterpiece. The exhibition is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya
The greatest Spanish draftsmen from the seventeenth through the nineteenth century — Ribera, Murillo, and Goya, among them — created works of dazzling idiosyncrasy. These diverse drawings, which may be broadly characterized as possessing a specifically "Spanish manner," will be the subject of an exclusive exhibition at The Frick Collection in the fall of 2010. The presentation will feature more than fifty of the finest Spanish drawings from public and private collections in the Northeast, among them The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hispanic Society of America, The Morgan Library & Museum, the Princeton University Art Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Opening the show are rare sheets by the early seventeenth-century masters Francisco Pacheco and Vicente Carducho, followed by a number of spectacular red chalk drawings by the celebrated draftsman Jusepe de Ribera. The exhibition continues with rapid sketches and painting-like wash drawings from the rich oeuvre of the Andalusian master Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, along with lively drawings by Francisco de Herrera the Elder and his son and the Madrid court artist Juan Carreño de Miranda, among others.

(Jusepe de Ribera (c. 1591–1652), Head of a Man with Little Figures on His Head, pen and ink with brush and brown wash over black chalk underdrawing on prepared paper, 6 11/16 x 4 1/16 inches, Philadelphia Museum of Art)

The second part of the exhibition will present twenty-two sheets by the great draftsman Francisco de Goya, whose drawings are rarely studied in the illuminating context of the Spanish draftsmen who came before him. These works, mostly drawings from his private albums, attest to the continuity between his thematic interests and those of his Spanish forebears, as well as to Goya's own enormously fertile imagination. The exhibition is organized by Jonathan Brown, Carroll and Milton Petrie Professor of Fine Arts, New York University; Lisa A. Banner, independent scholar; and Susan Grace Galassi, Senior Curator at The Frick Collection. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with entries by the show's organizers and by Reva Wolf, Professor of Art History, State University of New York at New Paltz, and author of Goya and the Satirical Print in England and on the Continent, 1730–1850, and by Andrew Schulz, Associate Professor of Art History and Department Head at the University of Oregon and author of Goya's Caprichos: Aesthetics, Perception, and the Body.

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), Peasant Carrying a Woman (Album F. 72), 1814–20, brush and sepia ink and wash on paper, 8 1/16 x 5 5/8 inches, Courtesy of The Hispanic Society of America, New York.

Anselm Kiefer, Unfruchtbare Landschaften @ Galerie Yvon Lambert

Anselm Kiefer, extrait de l’exposition «Unfruchtbare Landschaften», 2010. Courtesy Yvon Lambert © Anselm Kiefer

La galerie Yvon Lambert exposera parmi d'autres oeuvres d'Anselm Kiefer, certaines oeuvres conçues autour de l'année 1969, alors que l'artiste avait 24 ans. Parmi celles-ci: Pour Genet, l'Inondation de Heidelberg, ou encore Symboles héroïques, étranges livres cartonnés dans lesquels sont collées des photographies, des aquarelles, des fleurs séchées. Sur leurs pages, déjà, Kiefer griffonnait des noms propres appartenant à son étrange et obsessionnel panthéon. Le nom de Jean Genet surgit ainsi entre ceux de Wagner, de Beuys, ou de Jeanne d'Arc ! Ces indications énigmatiques semblent égarées au milieu de clichés qui nous provoquent et nous troublent. Elles méritent d'être décryptées et restituées dans la démarche de ce plasticien de la démesure.

Il est en effet important de revenir aujourd'hui à ces livres qui nous rappellent des «moments» d'interventions audacieuses d'Anselm Kiefer: il s'agit de vues ou de visions, d'images lourdement chargées de souvenirs et de symboles mais que le noir submerge, mais aussi d'autoportraits de l'artiste, dans des tenues saugrenues, chemise de nuit, robe de laine, et faisant un salut hitlérien dans des lieux grandioses ou dérisoires.

À l'époque, le jeune Kiefer a voulu, à lui tout seul, se livrer à ce qu'il appelait une «occupation» grinçante d'espaces significatifs, mais ces gestes et ces clichés ont été l'objet d'un scandale d'incompréhension, voire de sidération, y compris dans les milieux artistiques les plus radicaux: la critique d'alors n'admettait pas l'interrogation pathétique et provocatrice de Kiefer.

En découvrant ces livres étranges datant de près de quarante années, tous ceux qui croient connaître Anselm Kiefer et qui le reconnaissent à ses toiles immenses chargées de pâte ou de plomb offrant les images d'un chaos ou d'un obscur désastre au-dessus duquel passent des avions de guerre rouillés ou des navires cuirassés prêts à sombrer, tous ceux qui songent, en pensant à Kiefer, à cette écriture charbonneuse ou crayeuse tracée à même la toile, entre la paille, les cheveux et les étoiles, phrases arrachées aux poèmes de Paul Celan, d'Ingeborg Bachman, au Cantique des cantiques, à la Cabale juive ou à la Bible, tous ceux qui revoient ces architectures impériales s'anéantissant elles-mêmes ou s'écroulant en amas de briques, de bris de verre et de gravats déferlant jusqu'aux spectateurs, tous ceux qui revoient les feux sur la neige, tous ceux qui sont encore poursuivis par le rêve ou le cauchemar de reines ou de mariées de plâtre avec leur visage de barbelés, tous ceux enfin qui se souviennent de l'invasion du paysage par les livres, que ces livres soient peints, sculptés ou pliés dans des plaques de plomb, dressés en bibliothèques babéliennes ou brûlés, cramés comme par l'haleine d'un dragon sorti du Chant des Niebelungen, tous ces connaisseurs de Kiefer devront admettre que, depuis le début, l'innommable et subtile substance qui irrigue comme un sang gris, toutes les créations de Kiefer, depuis ses interventions ou installations les plus précoces jusqu'aux oeuvres les plus récentes ayant acquis une renommée mondiale, ce sang se nomme non pas l'«Histoire», ou même «le passé qui ne passe pas» ou bien «le destin de l'Allemagne»: il se nomme «Tragédie». Une tragédie qui outrepasse tout ce qu'on a pu dire pour la penser, l'expliquer ou la dépasser, ou croire recommencer à zéro après elle.

Car l'«après tragédie» est un autre mythe ! Tragédie humaine, donc, qui continue et continuera de hanter l'Europe, donc le monde, et donc l'Art lorsqu'il tente de mobiliser dans l'inquiétude, en les tordant ou tressant ensemble, la culture poétique et mythologique la plus profonde et le travail plastique et pictural le plus audacieux, dans les roux, les bistres, les noirs, les gris, les éclairs de blanc ou de bleu, la poussière et la cendre. Persistance du désastre. Avec Kiefer on apprend que l'étendue des dégâts ne se mesure pas mais s'expose.

Anselm Kiefer, extrait de l’exposition «Unfruchtbare Landschaften», 2010. Courtesy Yvon Lambert © Anselm Kiefer

The Porcelain of Meissen to Feature in Part Two of the Hoffmeister Collection Auction at Bonhams in May

A rare Meissen 'Augustus Rex' bottle vase, circa 1730. photo Bonhams

In the 300th anniversary year of the founding of the Meissen factory – Europe's first porcelain factory - Bonhams sale of 'The Hoffmeister Collection of Meissen Porcelain Part II' at 10.30am on 26th May 2010 at 101 New Bond Street, London. This follows on from the great success of Part I of the sale which made £1,097,100 in November 2009.

The Hoffmeisters assembled the greatest collection in the world of highly important Meissen armorial porcelain. The highlight result is a rare Meissen 'Augustus Rex' bottle vase, circa 1730.

A rare Meissen 'Augustus Rex' bottle vase, circa 1730. photo Bonhams

Painted in gilding and enamels with two birds amidst abundant indianische Blumen, including peonies, prunus and chrysanthemums, issuing from a seeded ground, a butterfly to the reverse and scattered blooms to the neck below a turquoise marbled band reserved with chrysanthemum-heads, 22cm high, AR monogram in underglaze-blue, impressed Dreher's mark of a cross (Rückert 1996, pl. 7, no. 8). Sold for £132,000

Provenance: Sydney J. Lamon Collection, New York, Christie's London, 29 November 1973, lot 13;
Anon. sale, Sotheby's London, 2 March 1993, lot 278;
Acquired in the above sale

Literature: Hoffmeister 1999, I, no. 138

Exhibited: Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1999-2009

A similar vase from a Swiss private collection was sold at Christie's London, 11 December 2007, lot 59. A similar vase, together with two slightly smaller, is in the Arnhold Collection, New York (Cassidy-Geiger 2008, nos. 17a-c, where the author notes that the shape was devised for the decoration of the Japanese Palace).

An important group of armorials is formed by pieces presented to Italian aristocrats by the Crown Prince of Saxony, Friedrich Christian, grandson of Augustus the Strong, owner and founder of the Meissen factory. In 1738 Friedrich, aged 16, accompanied his sister Maria Amalia (aged 14) to Naples for her marriage to the crown prince of Naples, later Carlos III of Spain. Friedrich Christian continued to travel around Italy on his Grand Tour between 1738 and 1740, when regular shipments of Meissen porcelain were sent to serve as gifts for his hosts. This sale features a cup and saucer from a service presented in 1743 to Pope Benedict XIV (born Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini), by Friedrich Christian's father, Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.

A Meissen armorial teabowl and saucer from the service for Pope Benedict XIV, circa 1743

Each decorated with the arms of Pope Benedict XIV and a gilt foliate scrollwork border to the inside rim, the teabowl with an Italianate scene of figures and palatial buildings by a canal with a boat and ship, within an elaborate gilt cartouche edged in brown and flanked by iron-red and purple scrollwork, enclosing a miniature oval landscape vignette in purple monochrome, the inside with a polychrome circular landscape vignette within two iron-red circles, the reverse of the saucer with three sprigs of indianische Blumen, gilt footrims, the saucer: 13.2cm diam., crossed swords marks in underglaze-blue, impressed 4 to saucer (2) - Sold for £16,800

Provenance: Gift from Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, to Pope Benedict XIV in May 1743;
Acquired in 1975

Literature: Hoffmeister 1999, II, no. 316

Exhibited: Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1999-2009

The gift in 1743 of a tea, coffee and chocolate service from Augustus III to Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758) has recently been discussed in detail by Maureen Cassidy-Geiger (Cassidy-Geiger 2007, pp. 230-231). The gift is one of many examples of Meissen porcelain that serve to illustrate not only its importance and value as diplomatic gifts, but also the strong ties between Rome and the newly Catholic ruling dynasty in Saxony.

The gift was presented to the pope in the garden of the Quirinale Palace in May 1743, as reported by the Roman chronicle Diario ordinario on 18 May: Sunday morning the most excellent Signor Cardinal Annibale Albani San Clemente, Protector of the Kingdom of Poland, went to [the Palazzo del] Quirinale to present to The Holiness of Our Lord [Benedict XIV] a most beautiful gift sent here by the Majesty of the King of Poland to His Holiness himself, consisting of three very refined services for chocolate, tea and coffee of the finest Saxon porcelain with gold borders and with the arms of His Beatitude, who received it with special pleasure; and in connection with the giving of this gift, being from the Kingdom [of Poland] came two Polish miners in gold and silver [costumes], who were also presented at the same time time to the Holy Father, who had the kind condescension to allow them to kiss his feet in the garden of the Quirinale where he was taking a walk (quoted by Cassidy-Geiger 2007, p. 231).

The miners were in fact on a mission to advise the Papal State on the viability of mines. The porcelain service they delivered served both to illustrate the qualities of Saxon porcelain, and, with a depiction of the Catholic Hofkirche in Dresden as it would look when it was finished, to symbolise the progress of Catholicism in Protestant Saxony (Cassidy-Geiger 1007, p. 231).

The teapot from the service is in the Hoffmeister Collection (Hoffmeister 1999, II, no. 317); the slop bowl is in the Arnhold Collection, New York (Cassidy-Geiger 2008, no. 161), and the coffee pot, sugar bowl, teapot stand and six teabowls and saucers, are in the Ludwig Collection in Bamberg (Hennig (ed.) 1995, no. 147). Another coffee cup and saucer was sold by Sotheby's Milan from the Vivolo Collection, 13 November 2007, lot 144.

Many of the pieces included in the collection boast such a prestigious provenance – diplomatic gifts between European princes that passed between some of the most colourful characters of the époque. As a result Part I of the sale saw enthusiastic bidding from private collectors, museums and dealers from around the world. Among the successful buyers was the Duke of Northumberland, who was able to acquire a plate from the celebrated Hanbury-Williams / Duke of Northumberland Service, which will be reunited with the rest of the service at Alnwick Castle. A Meissen cup and saucer from the Querini service has returned to the Fondazione Querini Stampaglia in Venice.

Another outstanding highlight of the sale is an important Meissen circular stand c.1725-30 with exquisite chinoiserie decoration. Formerly in the renowned pre-War collection of Erich von Goldschmidt-Rothschild it is estimated at £100,000-150,000. The provenance of many other pieces is equally distinguished, with examples from famous historic collections, such as the Royal collections of Saxony, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Russia and Baden.

A very rare Meissen circular dish, circa 1735

The well painted with an elaborate chinoiserie scene depicting figures seated around a table, flanked by a kneeling figure, a child holding a torch and flowers in pots, all on a gilt scrollwork pedestal with seeded, trellis and striped panels filled with Böttger lustre, reserved with a purple monochrome harbour vignette, and edged with foliate scrollwork edged in brown, the edge of the well with a striped gilt sawtooth border, the rim with two large and two small panels depicting Kauffahrtei scenes of merchants and their wares by a quayside, each within an elaborate gilt scrollwork cartouche filled with Böttger lustre, joined by iron-red scrollwork and a trellis panel reserved with an oval purple chinoiserie medallion, the reverse with three trailing branches of indianische Blumen, 23cm diam., crossed swords mark in underglaze-blue, incised x inside footrim; Sold for £66,000

Provenance: Baron Erich von Goldschmidt-Rothschild Collection, Berlin, sold by Hermann Ball & Paul Graupe, Berlin, 23-25 March 1931, lot 587;
The Property of a European Nobleman, dec'd., Sotheby's London, 29 June 1982, lot 97;
Acquired in the above sale

Literature: Hoffmeister 1999, I, no. 65

Exhibited: Zürich, Kunsthaus, Schönheit des 18. Jahrhunderts; Malerei, Plastik, Porzellan und Zeichnung, September-October 1955;
Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, 1999-2009

A closely similar circular stand with its tureen and cover - probably originally the pair to the present lot - is in the Museo Duca di Martina in the Villa Floridiana in Naples (published by Paola Giusti, Il Museo Duca di Martina di Napoli (1994), p.113).

The Hoffmeister Collection shows the quality and variety of the oldest porcelain manufacturer in Europe – it provides a survey of the first 50 years of the manufactory's existence, when Meissen dominated the taste for porcelain across Europe. This world famous collection was assembled over 40 years by two German brothers with a passion for this rare 18th century porcelain, and includes the largest and most important group of 18th century Meissen armorial porcelain anywhere in the world. For the past ten years it has been on show at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. Part II of the collection includes examples of all the early styles of decoration, including copies of Asian prototypes, chinoiserie decoration, European landscape and botanical subjects and armorial porcelain.