Some paintings for sale at Drouot

17/11/24 - Art market - Paris - As we await the opening of FAB Paris in the nave of the Grand Palais, a number of auction houses are offering fine sales of paintings and old master drawings, echoing the pieces of furniture, sculptures and objets d’art already on offer at Christie’s and Sotheby’s (see news item of 17/11/24): While we will return later to the rich programme planned by Artcurial (article to follow), we can already start with Hôtel Drouot, which previewed a selection of its jewels in room 9, but Nicolas Tournier’s unpublished The Lute Player (ill. 1) was already being admired by all in the salons of the Turquin cabinet in September. This highly Caravaggesque subject is treated here in the Languedoc artist’s distinctive manner, with its almost abstract stiffness.

: 1. Nicolas Tournier (1590-1639)
The Lute Player
Oil on canvas - 91 x 68 cm
Sale Millon, Hôtel Drouot, 20 November 2024
Photo: Cabinet Turquin; See the image in its page

The catalogue note compares the painting to another lute-player, on the right of the Concert in the Louvre, but we are of course thinking of the painting in the Musée de l’Ermitage and the Saint Genes sold by Christie’s in 2008, the same year that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York acquired the superb Lute Player by Valentin de Boulogne (see the news item of 26/11/08). While we can still dream of a return to Toulouse for this new painting by Tournier, following the two figures of peasant women carrying fruit so happily reunited at the Fondation Bemberg (see the news item of 27/11/15), we can bet that the bidding battle will be tough...

: 2. Willem Claesz. Heda (1594-1680)
Still life with rohmer, oysters and a glass of wine, 1634
Oil on panel - 36.5 x 56 cm
Sale Millon, Paris, Hôtel Drouot 20 November 2024
Photo: Cabinet Turquin; See the image in its page

Millon is also selling a very fine panel (ill. 2) by Willem Claesz. Heda, signed and dated 1634, a fine example of the…

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