An Ode to Joy
Friday, December 11th 2020
La Gazette Drouot, Philippe Dufour
An Ode to Joy with Chagall, Lalanne & Perriand
Featuring top names, the "Arts+Design" sale was held "extra muros" in Vendôme, acclaiming iconic works in 20th-century painting, sculpture and design.
Marc Chagall (1887-1985), Libération, 1952, oil and Indian ink on canvas, stamp of the Marc Chagall estate in the bottom center, 47.5 x 29 cm (approx. 18.7 x 11.4 in).
Result: €372,000
Honor to whom honor is due: Marc Chagall largely dominated the session with Libération, a radiant painting that was carried off for €372,000 by a Breton collector after a battle with a bidder from Brazil. This 1952 painting in oil and Indian ink—whose other side features a Portrait de femme—is a study for one of the sections of the triptych celebrating the revival of life after the horrors of the Second World War. Another vision bringing a little balm to the wounds of shattered history was a Still Life with the Izvestia newspaper painted in 1918, after the October Revolution, by Marie Mela Muter. Produced for Eirik Labonne, a French ambassador posted to Russia from 1917 to 1919, the painting (75 x 81 cm/approx. 29.53 x 31.9 in) was bought for €102,920 by a Polish collector.
On the design and decorative arts side, an odd bird took flight at €163,000: the Grand Échassier (tall wader) lamp created by François-Xavier Lalanne (1927-2008) in around 1990. Made of copper with a red patina, gilt bronze and frosted glass, carrying the monogram "FxL", the publisher's stamp "Artcurial" and the number 13/900, the utilitarian sculpture took off for a large Parisian apartment. During the sale, the bird landed briefly on a small model of Charlotte Perriand's free-form desk with its thick solid pine top standing on three legs, fitted with a wooden drawer and a superimposed pull-out shelf (72 x 175 x 86 cm/approx. 28.34 x 68.9 x 33.85 in). To get it moving, it took a bid of €138,000: a record for this model (source: Artnet).
François-Xavier Lalanne (1927-2008), Grand Échassier lamp-sculpture (Tall Wading Bird), c. 1990, copper with red patina, gilded bronze and frosted opaline glass, monogrammed "FxL", stamp of the manufacturer "Artcurial", numbered "13/900", 61 x 68 x 35 cm/approx. 24 x 26.8 x 13.8 in.
Result: €163,000