Displaying items by tag: l'amazone

An iconic painting by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) was the top lot at Sotheby’s auction of Impressionist and Modern Art yesterday, May 8, 2013 in New York. Les Pommes (1889-90), a still life of apples on a table, sold for $41.6 million, exceeding its high pre-sale estimate of $35 million. The second highest earning work at the auction was Amedeo Modigliani’s (1840-1929) L’Amazone, a well-known portrait of Baroness Marguerite de Hasse de Villers, which sold for $25.9 million falling within its presale estimate of $20 to $30 million. Both of the works were from the collection of philanthropists Alex and Elisabeth Lewyt and will fund a foundation set up in their honor to contribute to their favorite causes including animal welfare.

Other major sales included a Fernand Léger (1881-1955) painting previously owned by Madonna, Trois Femmes a la Table Rouge, which sold for $7.2 million (estimate: $5-7 million); a Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) sculpture of his muse Sylvette, which garnered $13.6 million (estimate: $12-$18 million); and three bronze sculptures by Auguste Rodin (1840-1916) including a version of his famed The Thinker, which brought $15.3 million (estimate: $8-$12 million).

The total sale netted over $230 million, just under the pre-sale high estimate of $235.1 million.

Sotheby’s will offer the Collection of Alex and Elisabeth Lewyt in a series of auctions in New York and Paris beginning on May 7, 2013. The works, which include paintings and drawings by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), Edgar Degas (1834-1917), and Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), will lead Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Sale in New York. Proceeds from the sale will benefit a charitable foundation to be created in the couple’s name. The 200 works, which also include illustrated letters by artists such as Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), are expected to garner anywhere from $67 million to $98 million.

The first sale of the series will present a selection of 20 works from the Lewyt’s collection. Highlights include a seminal Cézanne still-life titled Les Pommes, which the Lewyts bought from the Wildenstein Galleries in 1953; Modigliani’s sensual portrait of the socialite Marguerite de Hasse de Villers titled L’Amazone; and various works by Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque (1882-1963), and Marc Chagall (1887-1985).

Alex Lewyt, a New York-based vacuum cleaner inventor who died in 1988, and his wife, Elisabeth, an animal-welfare activist who died this past December, began amassing their remarkable collection in the 1950s.