Leading the 20th and 21st Century Art Evening Sale by Christie's on October 6th è Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier by Paul Cézanne, dated 1900-1906 (in the region of $25 million), a superlative watercolor still life from the collection of Edsel & Eleanor Ford House, Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan, which was acquired by Edsel Ford in 1933. This masterpiece, first shown at the New York MoMA in 1929, will be the highlight of the new October announced by Christie marquee auctions of 1th and 4st century art in New York (see related announcement). A global tour of the work begins in early September, with viewings by appointment at Christie's Hong Kong from 9-11 September and Christie's London from XNUMX-XNUMX September.
The compositions that Paul Cézanne created in watercolor after 1900, until his death six years later, were the culmination of his lifelong study of painting and constitute the final flowering of his art. Standing on the verge of abstraction, these works represent Cézanne's most revolutionary body of work. Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier is the apogee of Cézanne's work in watercolor and a defining moment in the beginning of Modern Art as we now know it.
The ownership history of this image is suitably distinguished; from the legendary merchant Ambroise Vollard to Alexandre Berthier, the fourth and last Prince of Wagram, killed in World War I, the watercolor came to America in 1929 and in 1933 entered the esteemed family collection assembled by Edsel and Eleanor Ford. Nature morte avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier is the best watercolor by the artist to be auctioned in nearly forty years.
It is fitting that this groundbreaking painting was acquired by the Ford family, who represent the pinnacle of American innovation. Edsel Ford was the only son of Henry Ford, the American industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company. The painting occupied the collection of Edsel and Eleanor Ford until Eleanor's death in 1976, when it was bequeathed to the private operating foundation that would become Edsel & Eleanor Ford House. The Ford family and their estate have captured the fascination of people everywhere for nearly 100 years. Located on the western shore of Lake St. Clair, 15 miles northeast of Detroit, “Gaukler Pointe” is an outstanding and well-preserved example of the American country house era. The Ford home at Grosse Pointe Shores stands as a prime example today and is the result of the creative collaboration between renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen, celebrated architect Albert Kahn, and Edsel and Eleanor Ford.
Gaukler Pointe remained a private residence until 1976 when Eleanor Ford died. It was his express desire that his family estate be preserved for the future and opened up for the benefit of the community, resulting in the formation of a foundation and the property being opened to the public in 1978. Ford House, as it became known, became firmly established itself as a major tourist destination and place of pride. In 2016, Ford House became a National Historic Landmark, bringing great honor to the estate. The estate and gardens are open to the public for events, walks and excursions. Proceeds from the sale will be used to support the Ford House endowment, enabling the Board of Trustees to ensure the conservation, restoration and care of the National Historic Landmark estate.
Cézanne and impressionism
The staging of Nature morte "avec pot au lait, melon et sucrier" is that of a table service, coffee or tea, perhaps from breakfast: Cézanne preferred the bright and growing light of the morning hours in which to work. He arranged a blue enamel teapot, a white milk jug, and a porcelain sugar bowl on a white tablecloth bordered in the classic French style with a single red stripe. Humble and ordinary as these component elements are, yet they combine to offer a feast for the eyes in varied and contrasting shapes and colors. The primary objects of this composition are the fruit, however: an uncut, globe-like green watermelon, slightly distant and off-center within the composition, but still the central site of visual focus and vanishing point in compositional perspective of the image.
During this late phase of his work, Cézanne was realigning his approach more closely to the principles of impressionism, which contained - within that fundamental and radical revelation that the artist should paint his feelings before the motif - the seed and the impetus for a more transcendent vision of nature, as Monet had begun to express in his water-lily garden paintings during the early years of the new century.
“I am proceeding very slowly,” wrote Cézanne to the young painter Émile Bernard in May 1904. “Nature appears to me very complex and the improvements to be made never end. One must see one's model clearly and feel it exactly right, and then express oneself with distinction and force." Such were the exemplary means that Cézanne bequeathed to his younger contemporaries. “Matisse and the Fauves, the Expressionists and the Cubists,” Clement Greenberg wrote in 1951, “all picked up where Cézanne – and Gauguin and Van Gogh – left off, and the end result was abstract painting, which is the flattest painting art we have ever seen in the West. “
