LE GRAY AND THE GREAT NAMES IN PHOTOGRAPHY
Friday, June 1st 2012
If Britain and France fight over the market for Gustave Le Gray's photographs, it's because the latter has well and truly top billing. As we remember, at Cheverny last year – one year almost to the day – the Rouillac auction house, after a bitter battle between French and American enthusiasts, registered a new world record!
Gazette Drouot International, June 2012Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884),
"Le Soleil au Zénith - Océan n°22, Normandie", 1856-1857,
period print on albumen paper from a collodion on glass negative, 32.1 x 41.7 cm.
If Britain and France fight over the market for Gustave Le Gray's photographs, it's because the latter has well and truly top billing. As we remember, at Cheverny last year – one year almost to the day – the Rouillac auction house, after a bitter battle between French and American enthusiasts, registered a new world record for a photograph from 1856-1857 of "Les Bateaux quittant le port du Havre" (boats leaving the port of Le Havre), which came from the former Charles Denis Labrousse collection (€917,000). The collection on offer this season should not put the older sale nor its fine records in the shade, even if forecasts can sometimes be unreliable in this field, as in many others… So let us just leave Le Gray to work his magic, and duly admire this seascape, which has never been in a public sale before. This "Soleil au Zénith-Océan n°22 Normandie", also from 1856-1857, comes from the former collection of Georges Louis Marie Félicien Jousset de Bellesme (1839-1925), a famous entomologist, father of fish-farming and author of numerous scientific books. As always in Le Gray's works, the print, which has remained in the family since that time, shows extraordinary, almost surrealistic light effects. In a completely different style, but one well worth the attention of discriminating connoisseurs, another lot up for sale is an album of Blanquart-Évrard – the father of photographic publishing – containing works by all the eminent photographers of the 19th century, including Charles Marville, Henri Le Secq, Auguste Salzmann and John Stewart: 57 prints from the various series published by Blanquart-Évrard (€100,000/120,000). A dummy album that should not go unnoticed…
Stéphanie Perris-Delmas
USEFUL INFO
Where? Vendôme
When? 22 June
Who? Rouillac auction house. Mr. Di Maria
How much? €60,000/80,000