John Lavery beach painting to crest at Capsule Gallery July 30

NEW YORK – Capsule Gallery’s American & European Fine Art + Editions sale will be held on Tuesday, July 30, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Capsuleʼs 156-lot sale features outstanding works from exceptional New York estates and collections including the estates of Rosalie Coe Weir of East 79th Street; Ines Bausili, Madeleine Deutscher, Rona Richman, all from Sutton Place, New York City; and the estate of Marcel Giacometti. The sale also features work from the collection of the late Broadway couple Frank and Jo Sullivan Loesser and the Milbank Collection. Bid absentee or live online through LiveAuctioneers.

Capsule Gallery has curated this auction around themes of nature and elegance. The works offered are more representational than those in Capsuleʼs recent Postwar & Contemporary Art sale and highlights include fine Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and modern art. Also featured are some excellent works of American Western art, sporting art and Haitian art.

The top featured lot is The Beach, Tangier (above) by the well-known Irish artist Sir John Lavery and is from the estate of Rosalie Coe Weir. Kenneth McConkey, an established authority on Lavery’s work writes in his essay on this piece: “As the tidal currents recede from the beach to the east of the Medina at Tangier, figures descend on the sands in the present painting by John Lavery. Many observers at the turn to the 20th century noted that at low tide, this became the cityʼs main highway, bringing herders of flocks, farmers with produce and traders of all sorts to and from market at the Grand Soko. Here one might also encounter expatriate Europeans and Americans, as the North African port, with its foreign Legations, was regarded as an international protectorate. For its variety of views, east to Cape Malabata, across the Straits of Gibraltar to southern Spain, or as here, to the splendid profile of the city, it was John Laveryʼs favorite sketching location over the 30-year period he visited Tangier…”

McConkey quotes Lavery himself who confided to his first biographer Walter Shaw Sparrow, in 1911 “… a curious thing happens when an artist sits down before his subject; material things vanish, only color and its plots remain, and they look visionary.”

The impressionistic Morning, Douarnenez by Jonas Lie (below) is also from the estate of Rosalie Coe Weir. It is a colorful scene of boats in the harbor and a crowd at the pier.

Frederick Carl Frieseke’s Woman in Silk Robe Standing in a Doorway is another top lot and an exceptional Post-Impressionist painting from the collection of Madeleine Deutscher. This interior is believed to have been executed in Giverny circa 1910. The subject is a beautiful woman gazing toward the viewer in a Japanese-inspired robe, her face and hands bathed in light from the window behind her. The painting, previously unregistered, will be included in Hollis Taggart’s forthcoming catalog raisonné.

Jean-Gabriel Domergue’s painting Au Bar is an excellent example of his well-regarded oeuvre. The “inventor of the pinup” is at his best in this tableau vivant of Parisian nightlife. The Domergue comes from the estate of Ines Bausili, whose postwar and contemporary art collection sold quite well in Capsule’s June sale.

Capsule is also offering a strong group of wildlife art: several paintings and many etchings by Carl Rungius, from the estate of Rosalie Coe Weir. The painting of Dall Sheep that she presumably purchased at Sothebyʼs is a majestic composition of two wild sheep atop a rocky perch, while the Woodland Moose, is an intimate portrait of one of Rungiusʼs favorite subjects.

For more information, contact Capsule Gallery at 212-353-2277 or info@capsuleauctions.com.