Henri Gervex painted Yachting in the Archipelago in 1898, while a guest on board the magnificent yacht, Namouna, belonging to Gordon Bennett, the owner of the New York Herald and an international media entrepreneur. Bennett, who is probably depicted as the gentleman in white suit, leaning against the cabin in the posture of Captain of his vessel, moved frequently between New York and Paris.
Between 1985 and 1989 I acquired a group of paintings from Rozhdestvensky from the 1920s and 30s. In 1985, I bought several works from what one might call his female series: Seated Woman with a Jug, Portrait of a Woman in Red, Girl in a Red Beret, which he said was one of his very last paintings.
—Dr. Valentina Jerlitsyna-Zharskaya, July 2020
This reminiscence found in a catalogue note for a sale of Russian Art that took place recently at Sotheby’s in London riveted my attention. I might have ignored it—had the prices achieved for the paintings cited not been so shocking.
Before watching the sale online this morning at Christie’s of Impressionist and Modern Art, which included a painting by Boudin we were selling for a New York family, I found myself reminiscing. Not so much about the painting—a gorgeous French port scene dated 1890—but rather of the family itself. For while we had sold many works for them in years past—furniture and decorations, Russian art, maritime memorabilia as well as Impressionist and Contemporary paintings—this was the very last item remaining in the collection.
A prominent mid-western family was selling their longtime vacation home on Maui. Suddenly they needed to make plans for all of the contents in the house. The most valuable paintings would be sold at auction in New York and London. But there were also two Japanese screens, long displayed in one wing of the house. The family, faced with the prospect of clearing out and selling the house, wondered aloud: “Why don’t we just leave these screens for the new owner?”
Ronald Varney Fine Art Advisors is highly experienced in working with families and individuals in the sale of major private collections. These usually comprise paintings and sculpture as well as furniture and decorations. But we also handle single objects of all kinds. Some of these are of great rarity and distinction yet have been hidden away and long forgotten, their value alluring but unclear.