Heritage Auctions – Fine European Art
Signature Auction December 6
View All Lots and Bid at HA.com/8186

DALLAS — Heritage’s December 6 Fine European Art Signature Auction is shaped by works from several notable collections and estates that are anchored by great paintings, and highlights include significant works by Claude-Joseph Vernet, Pierre Bonnard and Charles-François de Lacroix among others.

A handful of the auction’s leading lots come from the estate of prominent Dallas-based philanthropist Toni Chapman Brinker; the collection’s European works include the 1783 painting by Claude-Joseph Vernet, the grand cascade at Tivoli.

“We are proud to offer this painting to the public for the first time in 40 years, along with the most complete record of past ownership ever compiled,” said 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.

Guillaume-Léon du Tillot, Marquis de Felino (1711-1774) commissioned the work along with its pendant, a shipwreck scene, and the pair boasts remarkable provenance, including past ownership by, among others, Genevan ambassador Georges-Tobie de Thélusson (1728-1776) and Pierre Jacques Onésyme Bergeret de Grancourt, Lord of Grancourt and Count of Négrepelisse (1715-1785).

A sale in 1797 marks the point at which the pair was split; the pendant, “The shipwreck (Le naufrage),” made 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.

Also from the Brinker estate comes companion paintings by Vernet’s mentee Charles-François de Lacroix, called Lacroix de Marseille, from 1761 titled “Calm and Storm.” Pendant seascapes are a hallmark of Lacroix’s output, and this pair of paintings is particularly characteristic of his style as adopted from Vernet. Lacroix indeed established himself as a master of fantastical seascapes with a particular fondness for pairs contrasting calm seaports and dramatic tempests, embodying the then-contemporary concept of the beautiful and the sublime, and the present works are highly representative of Lacroix’s mature style.

Joining this work from the Brinker collection is a battle scene that has notable provenance of having once been owned by the distinguished Poussin scholar and French baroque specialist Sir Anthony Blunt. Charles Parrocel’s circa 1740 oil on canvas “Battle scene between the Christians and Turks” is a tour de force of the artist’s recognized gift for capturing the drama and spectacle of historical battle and hunting scenes.

Heritage will offer property from the collection of prominent wine maker and art dealer-collector Frederick H. Schrader across several auctions and categories in 2024-25, and this auction is bolstered by just over a dozen works from his sweeping collection. “On offer is a beautiful cache of luminous views of Venice from the Schrader Collection, all painted by gifted Nineteenth Century Spanish landscapists who loved the city,” said Berardi. “These beautifully detailed expanses along the Grand Canal and a sparkling scene of the Piazza San Marco painted from the water are featured in the work of Jose Villegas y Cordero, Rafael Senet y Perez, Martin Rico y Ortega and Antonio Reyna Manescau.” Highlights include Martín Rico y Ortega’s bright and serene oil-on-canvas painting “Santa Maria della Salute and the Dogana, Venice” as well as Antonio María de Reyna Manescau’s 1888 “Chiesa di Santa Maria del Rosario, Venice, San Giorgio Maggiore in the distance.” Beyond painting, Schrader’s love of sculpture surfaces in the auction with a circa 1500 bronze pacing horse from the Northern Italian School, eternal in its clean and muscular lines.

The sale also features important works from two private Chicago collections. The first collection features works by Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian painters, including a marvelous best-length characterization of an astronomer by Mattia Bortoloni. The gifted prodigy Bortoloni was a contemporary and rival of Tiepolo and enjoyed a considerable reputation during his lifetime for his monumental frescoes painted throughout northern Italy.

The second private Chicago collection offers a spirited portrait by the Post-Impressionist Pierre Bonnard. The charming painting, “Portrait d’Alfred Edwards, sur sa péniche (inachevé),” circa 1912, is of Bonnard patron and newspaper magnate Alfred Edwards aboard his yacht. “Notice how Bonnard’s focus runs from Edwards in the foreground sharply into the distance along the length of the yacht to the pilot at the wheel, where others have congregated,” notes Berardi. “Yet Edwards sits alone, his little dog perched aboard his master’s obviously expansive belly — the kind of detail that points to Bonnard’s legendary good humor.”

Other offerings of special note include a work by Dutch painter Jan Miense Molenaer: “Merry company around a table playing cards,” circa 1636, has been in continuous ownership for three generations in a Dutch family that emigrated to the United States. The scenes showing figures illuminated by lamplight strongly recalls the work of Molenaer’s wife, the celebrated genre painter Judith Leyster.

For information, 214-409-1341 or www.ha.com.

Charles-Francois de Lacroix, called Lacroix de Marseille (French, c. 1700-1782) Calm; Storm (a pair), 1761 Oil on canvas, 34 x 48-1/2 inches (each)
Property from the Estate of Toni Chapman Brinker, Dallas, Texas Estimate: $80,000 – $120,000
View All Lots and Bid at HA.com/8186
Inquiries: 877-HERITAGE (437-4824)
Marianne Berardi, Ph.D. | ext. 1506 | MarianneB@HA.com
HERITAGE AUCTIONS
Paul R. Minshull #16591. BP 15-25%; see HA.com 80340