NEW YORK, NY.- A private collection of Impressionist and Modern art that has remained largely out of public view for decades will come to auction at Sotheby’s in New York on November 18, led by major works by Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne.

The Blaquier-Arrieta Collection comprises 12 works and is expected to realize around $450 million. Its two highest-valued paintings are Van Gogh’s Châtaigniers en fleurs, estimated in the region of $180 million, and Cézanne’s Arlequin, estimated in the region of $120 million. Neither has been publicly exhibited for more than half a century, and Sotheby’s says both could set new auction records for their artists.

The collection was assembled by Carlos Pedro Blaquier and Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier, who regularly traveled to London during the 1970s, when major Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings could still be acquired through leading dealers. Seven of the works in the sale came from the Lefevre Gallery, including paintings by Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas and Gauguin.

At the center of the auction is Van Gogh’s Châtaigniers en fleurs, painted around May 24, 1890, only days after the artist arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise. The period would prove to be the final chapter of his life, but it was also one of extraordinary productivity. Newly released from the asylum at Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh arrived in Auvers with renewed energy and began painting at a rapid pace.

The canvas depicts a flowering chestnut tree dominating the composition, its branches and foliage worked in thick, animated strokes. Below it, a solitary figure passes three women carrying parasols, giving the scene a slightly dreamlike quality. According to Sotheby’s, only eight landscapes from Van Gogh’s Auvers period remain in private hands, making the work particularly rare on the market.





Its ownership history is almost as notable as the painting itself. After Van Gogh’s death, the work passed to his brother Theo, then to Johanna van Gogh-Bonger and their son Vincent Willem. Later owners included publisher Samuel Fischer, American songwriter and film producer George “Buddy” Gard DeSylva, and collector Harriet Harris-Jonas. The Blaquiers acquired it from Wildenstein in 1975, and it has not been exhibited publicly since.

Cézanne’s Arlequin, painted between 1888 and 1890, is equally unusual. It belongs to a group of only four Harlequin paintings created by the artist and is the only one from that series still in private hands. Cézanne’s son Paul posed for the composition, wearing the familiar red-and-black diamond costume of the Commedia dell’Arte character.

Rather than emphasizing theatrical action, Cézanne presents the figure as still and introspective. The increasingly simplified face and geometric treatment of the body place the painting at an important point in the artist’s development, when his figurative work was beginning to move toward the structural language that would later have such an impact on modern art. The painting has not been publicly seen since 1975.

Beyond those two works, the sale includes several paintings that would be major auction events on their own. Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s 1877 En Canot (Jeune fille à la barque) carries an estimate of $25 million to $35 million. Painted during the same period as Bal du moulin de la Galette, the work depicts a young woman associated with Renoir’s circle of favored models and belongs to his celebrated series of leisure scenes from the 1870s.

Camille Pissarro’s La Place du Théâtre-Français et l’avenue de l’Opéra, soleil d’après-midi en hiver, estimated at $30 million to $40 million, dates from 1898 and comes from the artist’s late Paris cityscapes. Painted from an elevated hotel window, it captures the newly transformed capital through shifting light, traffic and crowds. The work has never previously been offered at auction and has not been publicly exhibited since 1958.

Edgar Degas is represented by Avant la course, a large pastel of racehorses made around 1893 and estimated at $20 million to $30 million. Rather than portraying the race itself, Degas focuses on the tense pause beforehand, arranging horses and riders in a composition that feels observed almost in passing. Sotheby’s describes it as one of the most significant racing pastels by the artist to reach the market in decades.

The collection also includes Paul Gauguin’s late Tahitian still life Fleurs dans une coupe, estimated at $10 million to $15 million; Claude Monet’s 1876 Paris view Le Jardin des Tuileries, estimated at $15 million to $20 million; and André Derain’s Fauvist Bateaux au port de Collioure, estimated at $8 million to $12 million. Additional works are by Alfred Sisley, Maurice de Vlaminck, Toulouse-Lautrec and Pissarro.

Together, the 12 works offer a compressed history of the transition from Impressionism through Post-Impressionism and into Fauvism. What makes the group especially unusual is not simply its value, but the fact that so many of the works have remained outside both the auction market and public view for decades.

That long absence gives the November sale the character of a rediscovery. Paintings known to specialists largely through catalogues and old exhibition records are returning to public view at the same moment they re-enter the market, turning the dispersal of a private collection into a rare encounter with works that have effectively been hidden for a generation.