DALLAS, TX.- The most remarkable art collections are awash in great paintings — an artform that’s declared “dead” at least once per decade and yet remains the most popular, valuable and enduring of all. Great collectors have never given credit to the idea that “painting is over” because they know in their bones the impact a phenomenal painting can have on a person — whether painted in the 17th century or yesterday — as it’s imbued with the artist’s hand and interpretation of the world. The artist’s unique talent and vision is central to the painting’s charisma and the finished object becomes a kind of proxy for the artist as it enters a conversation with you. Heritage’s December 6 Fine European Art Signature® Auction is shaped by works from several notable collections and estates that are anchored by such 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 outstanding 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,” says 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,” says 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 (D 933.1), from whom it has been on longterm loan to the Musée Calvet in the artist's birthplace of 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 which 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 is pleased to 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 19th-century Spanish landscapists who loved the city,” says 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 17th and 18th 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 which 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.

As with the bronze pacing horse from Schrader’s collection, paintings are not the only gems in the auction, and this striking bronze by the gifted French sculptor Emile-Coriolan-Hippolyte Guillemin depicts a magnificently handsome and regal janissaire, a member of an elite military corps who protected the Ottoman Empire. “Adorned in Guillemin's sculpture with all the accoutrements associated with his very high place in society, the janissaire is presented in a pose traditionally used for princes and heads of state,” says Berardi. “The head turns in contrapposto to the torso, while his gaze steers above and past the onlooker into the distance. The janissaires enjoyed high social status until abolished by Sultan Mahmoud II. Due to their popularity and political power, they remained a captivating subject for portraiture during the Belle Époque.”