Located a stone’s throw from the Grand Palais, Christie’s will be at the centre of this international occasion in the coming days participating with a series of events that will set the tone for the 2024 auction season. Starting with the Danute and Alain Mallart Collection, Brussels-Paris-Vilnius will open – and set the tone – Contemporary Art Week. Accumulated with precision and discretion, and jealously guarded from prying eyes, the Danute and Alain Mallart Collection is the kind of collection dreams are made of. The fruit of over 30 years of painstaking research, reflecting two very strong personalities, this collection of art and design is deeply rooted in European history and completely open to the best of contemporary design. Its strength, richness and scope have already given the collection the status of exceptional provenance. Led by Feathered Stola (€1 million – €1,5 million), a major painting by Marlène Dumas – one of today’s most influential artists – the hundred or so works up for auction are estimated at between €8 and €12 million.

An event within an event, Thinking Italian will present for the third consecutive year a section dedicated to the best of Italian art

The following day, October 18, a stone’s throw from the Grand Palais, which is returning to the forefront of the world art scene, the flagship sale of the Parisian auction season will take place. A prestigious evening sale, Avant-Garde(s) including Thinking Italian, will once again pay homage to the great names of 1th and 1,5st century art, with a limited selection of a few dozen important works. On the occasion of the centenary of Surrealism, Christie’s presents Myrte (70 million – 2 million euros), the exceptional rediscovery of a Surrealist work by Francis Picabia, a perfect example of Picabia’s Transparency series, held in the same European collection since the 3s. It will be auctioned together with one of the very rare paintings by Alberto Giacometti, Buste sur la selle de l’atelier (1964 million – 3,2 million euros). Painted in 5, it is the work of an artist at the height of his artistic power, and was subsequently owned by Pierre Matisse and Ernst Beyeler, giving it one of the most significant provenances in the history of XNUMXth-century art. The same goes for the work Untitled by Joan Mitchell (XNUMX million – XNUMX million euros), purchased directly from the artist and carefully preserved in the private collection of Jacques Dubourg, a key figure in the art market.

The auction is led this year by an exceptional Concetto Spaziale by Lucio Fontana (estimate available on request) and a Achrome by Piero Manzoni (estimate available on request), coming from two prestigious private collections.

The Red Robe by Domenico Gnoli (1 million – 1,5 million euros), a fundamental work in the artist’s career, exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam, will play a leading role in the sale.

It will be followed shortly by a group of four works by Alighiero Boetti from the same collection, including one from the highly sought-after Aerei series (€800.000 – €1 million). The Paris sale is part of a series held in New York, London and Paris in which Christie’s is selling a group of works exhibited in a major retrospective organized to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of Boetti’s death. The sale will also include two significant examples of metaphysical paintings by Giorgio de Chirico.

Coinciding with the exhibition scheduled at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, the auction will highlight Arte Povera.

With a rare and exceptional collection of eight works from the period 1969-1979, of historical importance in the career of Giovanni Anselmo, Luciano Fabro, Mario Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Vettor Pisani, Emilio Prini, Gilberto Zorio and Giulio Paolini. It will also include two important works by Giuseppe Penone from the Grafite series, in positive and negative form: Pelle di grafite (dark) and Pelle di grafite (light). In addition, rare works from the 7s by Mario Schifano, (Insegna 8E 1961E, 600.000, €800.000 – €500.000) and Enrico Castellani (Diptych black-silver €800.000-€XNUMX) will complete this remarkable group of works.

The next day, the 20/21 Century Art Day Sale will bring together some of these great names in a broader and more accessible range, with estimates ranging from €2.000 to €600.000. Giuseppe Penone, Mario Merz and Alighiero Boetti will once again take centre stage, to continue the Italian chapter that began the day before. Works by Simon Hantaï, Kazuo Shiraga, Jean Dubuffet and Alberto Giacometti will be presented with estimates ranging from €20.000 to €300.000. Today’s sale is also broader from a historical perspective. Closing the year of 150th anniversary celebrations, Impressionism and the movements it spawned will be represented with works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (L’enfant à la capuche €200.000-€300.000), André Derain (Paysage de Martigues €150.000-€250.000), Édouard Vuillard (Madame Vuillard €200.000-€300.000) and Félix Vallotton (Les grands arbres €400.000-€600.000) – the highlight of the sale. A beautiful example of a reclining nude from 1927 by Moïse Kisling, Nu étendu sur un divan rouge, will round off the modern works in the sale, alongside others. A bronze Tête by Joan Miró (€300.000-€500.000) will complete the rich sculpture section of Week 20/21. Christie’s will also have the honour of associating itself with an exceptional project in support of contemporary creation by selling 12 works generously donated by great artists, from Raymond Pettibon to Paul McCarthy and William Kentridge, in support of the Imprimerie d’Art de Montparnasse Endowment Fund.

There will be no shortage of works by Chagall

Following the success of Chagall et la Musique in 2023 and other monographic sales in London and Hong Kong in 2022, the online sale Marc Chagall: Entre Ciel et Terre Œuvre provenant de la succession de l’artiste will propose a new series of previously unpublished works that come directly from the artist’s studio. The 72 works proposed on this particular occasion will provide an opportunity to explore the renewed synergy that permeates the creative and imaginative dimensions that transcend all pictorial spaces.