DALLAS, TX.- Three important landscapes by Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin — featuring the Impressionist’s favorite subjects and locales — highlight a diverse selection of fine painting, prints and sculpture in Heritage Auctions’ Fine European Art Signature Auction June 19 in Dallas. The auction spans works from the seventeenth- through the twentieth-century, including fine examples by French notables Signac, Daubigny, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cortez and Icart. A luminous masterwork from the 1920s by Russian painter Ivan Choultse, makes its auction debut with impeccable provenance. Old Master enthusiasts will find elegant portraits by Dutch seventeenth-century virtuoso Michiel van Musscher and Napoleonic court painter Francois-Joseph Kinsoen, as well as a fine French copy after Caravaggio’s celebrated Cardsharps (Collection Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas).

“In the realm of European art, it’s a fortunate privilege to offer masterpieces at auction for the first time and this auction is accented by fresh-to-market discoveries,” said Ariana Hartsock, Consignment Director for European Art at Heritage. “These private family collections hold some of the most exciting finds we’ve seen in years.”

Peupliers dans la vallée du Vert (est. $100,000+) demonstrates Martin's development of his Impressionist formulae toward a Post-Impressionist interest in form and design. Exceptional in its large scale and pristine condition, the painting depicts the nearby valley of the Vert River, an ideal location for his experimentation with the light effects of breeze-swept trees and water reflections. Time and time again, Martin returned to the Lot river valley as a choice subject, showing at different times of day and in different seasons the area's expansive meadows and hills and the distinctive poplar groves along the Vert. In Une allée dans le Parc du Château de Versailles (est. $30,000), Martin immortalizes the love he held for the city’s lovely parks and paths and the people who sought out quiet moments there. Lieur de gerbe (Étude pour "La Moisson," l'un des 4 panneaux du grand décor du Conseil d'État, Paris) (est. $12,000+) comes to auction after 50 years in a private Texas collection. The unique Pointillist study stands apart from Martin’s work in that is features on the verso a panoramic landscape painting (a continuation of two halves) by Martin's son, Jacques Martin-Ferrieres, who also practiced a Post-Impressionist aesthetic.

One of the sale’s prizes is Ivan Choultse’s radiant Snowy Sunrise (est. $50,000+), which has been in continuous ownership by the same family since the early 1930s, when the painting was virtually a contemporary work of art. The painting was purchased at the height of the Great Depression by James N. Currie, a close friend of Alexander Fleming (the inventor of penicillin), and himself the inventor of ascorbic acid (a synthetic form of Vitamin C) which secured his fortune. Currie bought this work upon the advice of one of the principals of Merrill, Lynch, Fenner and Smith, who encouraged him to invest in paintings not simply blue-chip stocks.

Snow in Spring, 1877, a fresh-to-market find by British/American artist George Boughton, is a major Salon painting by the artist whose whereabouts have been unknown for several decades. Boughton debuted this monumental work at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, 109th Exposition in 1877 where it created a critical sensation. The painting was so popular that it was reproduced as a wood engraving (est. $30,000+).

The auction features two outstanding European still lifes. The first, Still Life with Summer Fruits and Champagne, 1875, a newly discovered oil by Germany’s preeminent still-life painter Emilie Preyer, exemplifies the artist’s meticulous rendering of fruit, flowers and other tabletop items associated with banquets, abundance and affluence. Trained by her celebrated father, Johann Wilhelm Preyer, Still Life with Summer Fruits and Champagne was completed at the height of Preyer’s powers and its exquisite condition provides the ultimate testament to her remarkable ability to render superb detail. The second is Jean-Baptiste Robie’s Roses, Wildflowers, and Raspberries in a Wooded Landscape, circa 1869, a beautifully-preserved work by the Flemish painter, formerly in the collection of robber baron Jay Gould (est. $30,000+).

The auction also includes a selection of wonderful graphics, namely a cache of original early 20th-century French poster designs such as St. Raphael, circa 1938, by Paul Colin (est. $10,000+) and Tabarin, 1928, (est. $8,000+). Cesar, 1939, by A.M. Cassandre (est. $7,000+), Le Planteur de Caiffa, circa 1925, by Leonetto Cappiello (est. $4,000+) and Voison Automobile advertisement, 1923, by Charles Henri Honoré Loupot, represent the finest of European poster art from the period.

Additional highlights include, but are not limited to:

• Harem Beauties at Market, by Fabio Fabbi (est. $30,000+).

• The Last Look, by Carl Herpfer (est. $25,000+).

• Femme pensive by Louis Icart, (est. $15,000+).

• Couverture de l'estampe originale (Album de clôture), 1895, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (est. $8,000+).

• Portrait of Madame Lestapis (née Boode), Daughter of Henry Boode, 1824 by François-Joseph Kinsoen (est. $7,000+).

• Portrait of a Woman in a Landscape, circa 1680-95 by Michiel Van Musscher (est. $7,000+).