DALLAS – Le secret d’amour, a grand scale, turn-of-the-century work by French Academic painter Guillaume Seignac set a world record for the artist when it sold for $250,000 in Heritage Auctions’ $1.3-plus million Fine European Art.
Absentee and Internet live bidding was available through LiveAuctioneers.com.
First exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1903, Seignac’s life-size composition (above) features an enchanting nymph who fixes the viewer in a hypnotic gaze while a cherubic Cupid levitates beside her, whispering into her ear. The exceptionally fine draftsmanship and color harmonies in this painting earned the artist a Third Class medal at the Salon. Held in a private Dallas collection for the past 45 years, this masterwork, epitomizing the powerful influence of William Bouguereau on Seignac’s classicizing style and subject matter, sold for four times its estimate.
“This auction featured many artworks that have not been viewed outside private collections in decades,” said Ariana Hartsock, consignment director of European Art at Heritage.
“Top works by notable nineteenth-century artists fared extremely well in the auction,” said Marianne Berardi, senior fine art expert for Heritage Auctions. “Another case in point is Barend Cornelis Koekkoek’s Winter landscape with wood gatherers and skaters, 1854, which sold to the phone for $225,000. The work (below) is a brilliant combination of Koekkoek’s mastery of Dutch 17th century conventions drawn from the likes of Cuyp, Ruisdael and Wynants, and the 19th century penchant for intensely illuminated skies behind richly articulated natural forms. This work has been beautifully preserved right down to the finest touches of snow on the thinnest of tree branches.”
Au Musée du Louvre – les Murillo, 1912, an ambitious interior view (below) of a woman copyist at the easel in the Louvre’s Murillo gallery by French artist Louis Béroud sold for $75,000, more than twice its estimate. A hotly contested painting by French painter-illustrator Gustave Doré, titled Lorraine of 1869, sold for an impressive $32,500 against an estimate of $6,000-$8,000.
Place de la Madeleine, circa 1967, a classic Parisian street scene (below) by Edouard-Léon Cortès (French, 1882-1969) sold for $52,500.
Additional highlights included:
Le compotier de pêches (Bowl of Peaches), circa 1889-90, by Édouard Vuillard: Realized: $50,000.
Le port de Paimpol, 1924, by Paul Signac: Realized: $45,000.
Venise – Vue de San Giorgio Maggiore, circa 1878-80, by Franz Richard Unterberger: Realized: $42,500.
Beloved site, a folk painting, by Mikhail Filipovich Ivanov: Realized: $40,000.
Click here to view the fully illustrated catalog for this sale, complete with prices realized.