Claude Monets oil painting, Lescalier à Vétheuil (1881), is the top lot of the Impressionist and Modern evening sale in New York on 11 November.
Courtesy of Christie's
In three forthcoming sales in both New York and London, Christies will offer 20 works from the collection of the late New York couple Herbert and Adele Klapper. The auction house predicts that the collection, which is being offered without guarantees, will bring in more than $50m.
The Brooklyn-born entrepreneur Herbert Klapper founded the Superior Sewing Machine and Supply Corporation in the late 1940s, a wholesale distributor of industrial sewing parts based in New Yorks Garment District. The couple “started buying in the early 1980s and bought everything together, from classic to contemporary works—their collection spans centuries”, says Max Carter, the head of the Impressionist and Modern art department in New York.
Highlights included in the auction houses Impressionist and Modern evening sale in New York on 11 November include Claude Monets oil painting Lescalier à Vétheuil (1881) estimated at $12m-$18m, and an unique white marble sculpture by Jean Arp called Déméter (1961) estimated between $2m-$3m. In total, the evening is slated to feature 16 works from the Klapper collection.
Jean Arp's Déméter (1961) is estimated between $2m-$3m.
Courtesy of Christie's
The American day sale on 20 November includes two landmark paintings by William Barnett from the artists celebrated series of portraits of family members. Barnett was “one of the first artists that caught their eye before the couple moved on to the European works”, says Carter. The oil paintings, Aurora (1977) and Circe (1978), range from $60,000 to $120,000.
In its Old Masters evening sale in London on 6 December, the auction house will offer an oil work by the Flemish artist Pieter Brueghel, the Younger, called The Netherlandish Proverbs and estimated at £3.5m-£5.5m. The work is of similar size and composition to the artists record-setting painting, The Battle between Carnival and Lent, which Christies sold in London in 2011 for £6.9m (est £3.5m-£5.5m). Another work from the Klappers collection, a still life by the Dutch artist Balthasar van der Ast, is estimated at £200,000-£300,000.
Pieter Brueghel the Younger's The Netherlandish Proverbs has a high estimate of £5.5m and will highlight the Old Masters sale in London on 6 December.
Courtesy of Christie's
