PARIS.- While this year celebrates the centenary of Auguste Rodin’s death (1840-1917), the prestigious Impressionist and modern art auctions held on the 30th and 31st May will include Andromède, a rare marble sculpture with an extraordinary history. Remaining within the same family since its creation in 1887, art historians had lost its trace as years passed. 130 years after its creation, the Arcurial teams located it in Madrid!

The auction will also include important impressionist works including a Camille Pissarro oil on canvas, Effet de neige à Eragny, alongside postimpressionist paintings by Pierre Bonnard and Ker-Xavier Roussel and sculptures by Aristide Maillol. Artists Joan Miró, Marie Laurencin and Georges Buffet will complement this set.

Furthermore, an ensemble of canvases, drawings and aquarelles by Raoul Dufy, André Lhote and Marcel Gormaire sourced from Michèle Morgan’s private collection will be up for auction, including a portrait of the French actress by Moïse Kisling and a painting awarded to Michèle Morgan for her Cannes Film Festival best performance award in 1946.

« Rediscovering this Rodin marble 130 years after its creation is truly an event! In the 1930’s, Georges Grappe, first curator of the Rodin museum mentioned the hypothesis that Andromède was doubtlessly still in the possession of the Morla family, but without any certitude. Since then, all trace of the sculpture was lost…» --Bruno Jaubert, Associate Director Artcurial Modern Art Department

Andromède by Auguste Rodin
In 1888, Chilean diplomat Carlos Lynch of Morla, stationed in Paris, asks his friend Auguste Rodin to produce the portrait of his young wife, Luisa. The sculptor immortalises the young woman’s beauty in a marble bust. The resulting masterpiece of portraiture art was exposed at the Salon National des Beaux-Arts, the same year. The acclaim was of such magnitude that the French State expressed the desire to acquire the piece and to integrate it to the Musée du Luxembourg collection, the Museum of Contemporary Art of the time.

As a patron of the arts and a friend of France, Carlos Lynch de Morla agrees to relinquish the bust, allowing it to join the French public collections. Today, it can be admired at the Musée d’Orsay. As a gesture of appreciation to the couple, Auguste Rodin gives a white marble sculpture representing a naked young woman draped over a rock, Andromède, created a year prior to the events, in 1887. Andromeda is one of the most beautiful examples of a modern and sensual transposition of an ancient myth in Rodin’s work. Its estimate is €800,000 – 1,200,000/ $ 880,000 – 1,320,000.

Collection Michèle Morgan
The auction will also include works from Michelle Morgan’s collection (1920-2016). An art lover, the French actress collected numerous paintings, aquarelles and drawings throughout her life, guided by Marcelle Oury, the mother of the man who shared her life since 1959, the cinematographer Gérard Oury.

From her collection, Artcurial will offer a selection of major works, such as Le portrait de Michèle Morgan created in 1942 by Moïse Kisling in Los Angeles (estimate: €40,000 – 60,000/ $44,000 – 66,000) alongside several Raoul Dufy paintings, including the Vernet-les-Bains and Beer aquarelles, estimated each €40,000 – 60,000 /$44,000 – 66,000 Amongst the pieces the actress received as gifts is the Henri de Waroquier oil on wood panel Eglise d’Ile-de-France (estimate: €1,000 – 1,500/ $1,100 – 1,650). In 1946, during the first edition of the Cannes Film Festival, Michèle Morgan is given the award of Best Female Interpretation for her role in La Symphonie pastorale by Jean Delannoy. She was given the painting which from that day on, was always in her possession.

Impressionism and postimpressionism
Hailed as one of the Fathers of the impressionism, Camille Pissarro will represent this style with an oil on canvas, Effet de neige à Eragny. The painting dates from last years of the painter’s life, toward 1890, in Eragny-sur-Epte, north of Gisoirs, where he sets up his workshop in the midst of an apple orchard. In this work, Pissarro magnifies pure impressionism: The term "effect" in the title explicates the colour prisms created by the reflections in the snow. Its soft white tones are gradually replaced by a palette of yellow, red, blue and green, a precursor to the impending arrival of Fauvism. Finally, the pointillism technique used here reflects the influence of his friend Georges Seurat, met in 1885 (estimate: € 300,000 – 400,000/ $330,000 - 440,000).

Several postimpressionist masters will also be honoured. Among them, Pierre Bonnard and Corbeille de fruits created in 1924 (estimate: € 600,000 – 800,000 / $660,000 – 880,000). The work can be characterised by an intense concentration of fruit and objects. The space seems compressed, converging towards the basket. This play on perspectives abolishes all boundaries, this closed framing process becoming constants in Bonnard’s works. Indeed, he is a keen photographer, a hobby he practices as an amateur. His still-lives benefit from this novel approach to reality used in photography.

Also from this movement Post-impressionist is Ker-Xavier Roussel with an oil on cardboard, Les Trimazzo, named after a custom from the Lorraine region and representing a farandole of adolescents dancing in the countryside. (estimate: €12,000 – 18,000/ $13,200 – 19,800) and also Aristide Maillol with several bronzes including Printemps sans bras created in1911 (estimate: €350,000 – 450,000 / $385,000 – 495,000).

Raoul Dufy’s Fauve period
The oil on canvas Le Canotage presented in this sale demonstrates Raoul Dufy’s unparalleled talent of as a colourist and cartoonist (estimate: €600,000 - 800,000 / $660,000 - 880,000). This taste for colour is linked to an aesthetic style typically associated to Raoul Dufy’s Fauve period. In 1907, the year in which he paints Le Canotage, marks the start of a period of reflection and transition for the painter. This work illustrates the independence of shape and colour that Dufy will develop in the 1920’s and refine at a later date. "It must be remembered that a stroke further describes a movement, more than a form. A silhouette is a movement, not a form", he states. This movement seems to be very clearly the subject of the painting: the contours of the boats and rowers do not delimit the white colour which applies to both the characters and the boat that moves to the right side of the canvas.

Furthermore, other great masters of the 20th century are represented, such as Georges Braque with Nature morte à l’échelle, (estimate: €400,000 – 600,000/ $440,000 – 660,000) created in 1943, Marie Laurencin with an oil on canvas, Frère et sœur, from 1926 or Joan Miró with three colour pencil drawings sketched for his art critic friend, Gaëtan Picon and his wife Geneviève (estimation: €20,000 – 30,000/$22,000 – 33,000).

Finally, a stunning set of furniture by Alberto and Diego Giacometti will close the 30th May sale, paire de guéridons aux harpies in bronze created by Diego Giacometti carrying an estimate of €200,000 – 300,000/ $220,000 – 330,000).