PARIS.- Christie's unveils masterpieces from the Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares Collection, to be offered at auction in Paris on 23 September. Assembled over four decades by Graziella Ortiz and her husband, the collection is widely recognised as one of the most remarkable ever devoted to the decorative arts and Old Master paintings. The presence of major works previously in this collection in prestigious institutions such as the Getty Museum, the Musée du Louvre, and the Château de Versailles attests to its importance. While offering insightful perspectives across different periods of art history, this outstanding classical collection is primarily centered on the Régence period and the reign of Louis XV. The selection of approximately sixty lots is structured around three main fields: paintings and drawings, including a group of masterpieces by Watteau, Fragonard, and Ingres; furniture and works of art; and silver, a field in which Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares distinguished herself as one of the greatest collectors in history, assembling exceptional pieces of royal provenance.
Artdaily Recommended · Paid Link
Jean-Antoine Watteau
A study of the French Rococo master
Explore Watteau’s elegant scenes, theatrical imagination, refined color, and lasting influence on eighteenth-century French painting.
See it on Amazon → As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Paintings and Drawings: Masterpieces of French Art
The Enchanted Isle (L'Île enchantée), painted circa 1717 by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), is the highlight of a group of masterpieces by the greatest French painters of the 17th and 18th centuries. It is a major work offering a rare moment of pictorial poetry, fully justifying Watteau's standing as one of the greatest painters in the history of French art (estimate on request). It is recognised as one of the most important works by the artist remaining in private hands. When it was exhibited in the seminal Watteau retrospective held in the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais in Paris in 1984, one of the rare public presentations of this work, Pierre Rosenberg described it as a “magnificent spectacle of nature. The Enchanted Isle (…) is at once earthly and beyond reach, rooted in time yet timeless.” Shown for the first time in over a century in Paris, then in Berlin and Washington, The Enchanted Isle was regarded as the most spectacular highlight of the exhibition. The public had the opportunity to rediscover it in the exhibition The Worlds of Watteau, held at the Château de Chantilly in 2025.
Watteau studied closely not only Venetian but also Milanese Renaissance painting. We know that he had access to the royal collections, where he was able to study in detail the masterpieces of Titian and Leonardo da Vinci. The fantastical, blue-tinged, snow-covered and rugged mountain backdrops of the Mona Lisa and the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne seem to have offered direct inspiration for The Enchanted Isle.
Another highlight is Jean-Honoré Fragonard's (1732–1806) The Longed-for Moment or Happy Lovers (L'Instant désiré ou les Amants heureux) (estimate: around €2,500,000). Everything that defines Fragonard's art is here. In the fluidity of the paint, in the transparency of the colours, in the soft light that caresses the bodies, in an embrace that suspends time. The composition of the work is characteristic of Fragonard's lively and spontaneous style. His technique, marked by great freedom, is that of an artist who has achieved total virtuosity. The light and suggestive iconography of the work is reminiscent of other paintings by the artist held in the Wallace Collection in London (The Swing) or the Louvre Museum in Paris (The Bolt).
Among the other important paintings in the collection, special mention should be made of The Little Dancers (Les Petits danseurs), a very rare oil on copper by Antoine Le Nain (1600–1648) from the collection of Gabriel Cognacq (estimate: around €2,000,000), and the Portrait of a Young Boy (Portrait d'un jeune garçon) by Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805) (estimate: €300,000–500,000). Another major and powerful work is the Julius Caesar (Jules César), an imperial commission from Napoleon III to Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) for the frontispiece of his work devoted to the Life of Julius Caesar (estimate: around €1,000,000). It is accompanied, under the same lot number, by two preparatory drawings and an autograph letter from the artist regarding this important commission.
The interplay of the drawings and painting is especially evocative. It reveals the fundamental challenges of his time that Ingres had to address when representing the cultural policy of the Second Empire, the balance of history and power, and the ability of an image to shape our perception of historical figures. It is a reflection on the nature of authority, caught between grandeur and humanity, myth and reality.
The collection also includes a significant body of 18th and 19th century French drawings, including a superb watercolour by Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), Sleeping Soldiers (Soldats orientaux endormis dans un poste de garde) (estimate: €250,000–350,000), which reflects the artist's fascination with the Orient. Presented by Delacroix to the Comte de Mornay (1803–1878) to express his gratitude for being invited to join a diplomatic delegation to Morocco to meet Sultan Moulay-Abd-er-Rahman, this remarkably fresh drawing is in excellent condition. It is reappearing on the market after having remained out of sight for more than half a century.
Alongside the section devoted to French drawings, two remarkable landscapes in pen and brown ink by Fra Bartolommeo (1472–1517), one of the greatest Florentine masters of the Renaissance, are being offered. From the collection of Maria Niccolò Gabburi (1676–1742) and part of an album sold at auction in 1957, one of the two, a double-sided study depicting a View of an Italian town (Vue d'une ville italienne) (estimate: €600,000–800,000), was considered at the time to be the most important in the series.
At the Table of Kings: The Glory of Silverware
Assembled with passion and expertise at major historic auctions in New York, London and Paris, often with the assistance of the antique dealer Jacques Helft, the collection of silverware constituted by Graziella and Jorge Ortiz is historically one of the most significant and stands alongside the Rothschild, David-Weill and López-Willshaw collections. This collection of fifteen pieces, including candlesticks, cutlery, plates, salt cellars and pepper shakers, recounts the story and splendor of European tableware from the late 17th century to the eve of the French Revolution, illustrated by pieces crafted by the greatest silversmiths of their generation, whose names have become synonymous with excellence.
Among the rarest pieces are four three-light candelabra from the Portuguese Royal Service, crafted by Thomas (1673-1748) and François-Thomas Germain (1726-1791) (estimate: around €3,000,000). The service for the kings of Portugal is the world's most significant 18th century French silver service, and the largest commission ever placed by a foreign court with the Germain workshop, silversmiths to the kings of France. As the first service commissioned from Thomas Germain in 1729 was destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, a new commission was placed with his son François-Thomas Germain following his father's death in 1748. This second commission involved more than a hundred craftsmen in its creation. Deliveries were spread over a period of nearly eight years. Having survived the Napoleonic invasions and political upheavals, the pieces of this fabulous service also escaped melting down and are today found in museums such as the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga and the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the Louvre, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The four candelabra offered for sale are among the last remaining examples in private hands of one of the most remarkable sets of silverware. Admired by all the guests of the kings of Portugal, and regarded as the apotheosis of French Rococo taste, they are immortalised in the portrait of Thomas Germain and his wife painted by Nicolas de Largillierre (1656-1746) in 1736, now held at the Gulbenkian Museum, where the silversmith proudly points them out.
Another legendary piece in the collection is a rare ewer and basin in silver-gilt from the Louis XIV period, crafted by King Louis XIV's goldsmith, Nicolas Delaunay (1646–1727) (estimate: €600,000–800,000). Despite being regarded as the father of the Regency style, with designs that inspired generations of goldsmiths, Delaunay appears to have produced few works bearing his hallmark. Although this model of ewer went on to become famous and was widely reproduced in bronze until the 19th century, only two examples in silver-gilt survive. The older of the two, made in 1697, which has unfortunately lost its basin, is now held in Poitiers Cathedral. Our example, dating from 1704, is the only one still complete. It is engraved with the coat of arms of Jérôme Marie Champion de Cicé (1735–1810), a man of the Church and a politician, and the father of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Nicolas Delaunay, like Thomas Germain, chose to be depicted with his masterpiece in a portrait by Robert le Vrac de Tournières (1667–1752).
Finally, four gold table services commissioned for Frederick Augustus II (1797-1854), Elector of Saxony, King of Poland, and son of Augustus the Strong, are rare surviving examples of royal gold tableware. Each set comprises a spoon, a fork, a knife, a spice box, an egg cup and a marrow spoon. Presented in their numbered case, they were used for the 'Petit Couvert' of the king and the Polish royal family (estimate: €200,000–300,000).
Furniture and Works of Art: Exceptional Craftsmanship and Prestigious Provenance
Royal grandeur and technical virtuosity also set the tone for this extraordinary collection of furniture and works of art. This is the case of the carpet from the Royal Savonnerie Manufactory, the perfect embodiment of the finest achievements of the royal manufactories and one of the prides of the collection assembled by Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares (estimate: around €1,000,000). Dating from the Louis XIII period, its monumental dimensions (nearly 6 meters long) and lavish decoration foreshadow the major commissions placed by Louis XIV for the Louvre, recently showcased at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Attributed to André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732), the remarkable desk dates from the end of the reign of the Sun King and embodies all the hallmarks of the famous cabinetmaker's work. With its projecting frieze drawer and its emblematic masks of Democritus and Heraclitus, it bears a striking resemblance to the famous series of drawings attributed to Boulle and preserved at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The piece offered for sale is one of the very few known examples still retaining its original cartonnier (estimate: €400,000–600,000).
Oriental lacquerware was particularly prized in the 18th century, from the reign of Louis XV onwards, and is prominently featured in the Patiño Ortiz de Linares collection. Amongst these lots is a luxurious Japanese lacquer chest of drawers, richly ornamented with chiseled and gilded bronze, with a red marble top. Dated to circa 1740, this is stamped by Mathieu Criaerd (1689-1776) and belongs to a collection of furniture supplied to the court by a leading furniture dealer (estimate: €150,000–250,000).
Of exceptional quality, this chest of drawers was accompanied by a sumptuous pair of Louis XV ormulu-mounted Karashishi lion candelabra in Kakiemon Japanese porcelain and Chantilly porcelain flowers (estimate: €200,000–300,000).
Finally, an exceptionally rare pair of Louis XV ormulu-mounted corner cabinets (encoignures) in black lacquer, with interiors inlaid with bois de bout marquetry, by Bernard II van Risamburgh (B.V.R.B.) (active 1730-1767), is endowed with a distinguished provenance. They have been identified as part of a consignment made for the château at Crécy, belonging to Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764), a great collector and patron of her time, in the image of Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares. They are precisely described in Lazare Duvaux's journal entry dated 20 September 1753: 'Two openwork corner pieces, with crow's feet, varnished, mounted in gilded bronze with ground gold, the interior veneered in satin-finished wood with floral motifs, the marbles from Brocatelle, 400 livres.' The pair of cabinets also belonged to Paul Dutasta, a French diplomat and secretary of the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference (estimate: €200,000–300,000).
