DALLAS, TEXAS — Heritage Auction’s December 6 Fine European Art Signature sale featured works from several notable collections and estates and were anchored by great paintings, including significant works by Claude-Joseph Vernet, Pierre Bonnard and Charles-François de Lacroix, among others.

A few of the auction’s leading lots came from the estate of prominent Dallas-based philanthropist Toni Chapman Brinker. It was from her collection of European works that the sale’s top lot, a 1783 painting by Vernet (French, 1714-1789), depicting the grand cascade at Tivoli, graced the sale, selling for $287,500, including buyer’s premium.

The painting was being offered to the public for the first time in 40 years, along with a burgeoning record of provenance, according to Dr Marianne Berardi, Heritage’s director of European art. This particular landscape “is rather sentimental in its tender treatment of such a grandiose force of nature, turning focus instead towards the subtle observation of those locals who interact with and draw their livelihoods from it,” said Berardi.

According to a pre-sale press release, the painting had been commissioned by Guillaume-Léon du Tillot, Marquis de Felino (1711-1774) along with its pendant, a shipwreck scene. In a 1797 sale the pair was split; the pendant, “The shipwreck (Le naufrage),” making its way into the holdings of the Louvre, from whom it has been on long-term loan to the Musée Calvet in Avignon where it is still on view today.

Ultimately the Tivoli scene came to be in the possession of art dealer, collector and advisor Philip Hewat-Jaboor, from whom it was acquired by this sale’s consignor in 1985.

More results from this sale will be discussed in a later review.