Stolen Art DealerA Mediterranean seaside view in oil paint: red-orange roofs and ochre houses step down a hillside toward a blue bay, with a pine tree at each side and a band of sky above a high horizon.
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Catalogue No. 2054 · Christie's · New York
L’Estaque aux toits rouges
About $67.1 million in today’s money: 770 years of the typical US household’s income. Source
- Artist
- Paul Cézanne (French, 1839–1906)
- Title
- L’Estaque aux toits rouges
- Date
- c. 1883–85
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 65.5 × 81.4 cm (25¾ × 32 in)
Christie's says that in May 1883 Paul Cézanne wrote to his friend Émile Zola about renting a house at L'Estaque, a village on the bay of Marseille. This painting belongs to the views he made there in the years that followed. Christie's calls it one of the culminating works of his L'Estaque landscapes.
The view is arranged in stacked layers of land, sea and sky, with a pine tree on each side. Terracotta roofs and ochre, cube-like houses step down toward the water. Christie's notes that there are no shadows, that the horizon sits high and almost straight, and that the sea reads as a nearly flat plane. A smokestack and church towers look like cut-out shapes.
Christie's exhibition history lists a single showing before the sale: the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris in 1936, lent by the Pellerin family. Christie's lists its owners as Auguste Pellerin, his descendants, the dealer Wildenstein and, from June 1978, the collector whom the catalogue raisonné names as Edwin Cox.
On 11 November 2021 it sold at Christie's New York, in the evening sale of the Cox Collection, for $55.3 million including the buyer's premium.
The sale
- Auction house
- Christie's, New York
- Date
- 11 November 2021
- Lot
- 10C
- Estimate
- $35,000,000–$55,000,000
- Sold for
- $55.3 million (including buyer’s premium)
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Provenance
undated
Auguste Pellerin, Paris.
1929
Jean-Victor Pellerin, Paris (by descent from the above, 1929).
1970
Ingeborg Pellerin, Paris (by descent from the above, 1970).
1978
Wildenstein & Co. Inc., New York (acquired from the above, 1978).
1978-06-15
Acquired from the above by the late owner, 15 June 1978. (The online catalogue raisonné lists this owner as Edwin Cox, Dallas, June 1978.)
2021-11-11
Cox Collection, Christie's, New York, November 11, 2021, no. 10C
after 2021-11-11
Guggenheim Partners Art Holdings, LLC (listed as current owner by the online catalogue raisonné; no auction house or press source names the buyer) Reported
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Sources
- Christie's, lot page: Paul Cézanne, L'Estaque aux toits rouges (The Cox Collection: The Story of Impressionism, Evening Sale, lot 10C)
- Christie's, The billion-dollar sales week returns to Christie's, led by Impressionist masters from the Cox Collection
- The Art Newspaper, Edwin Cox sale at Christie's: auction report (12 November 2021)
- Feilchenfeldt, Warman and Nash, The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cezanne (online catalogue raisonné), FWN 191
Prices include the buyer’s premium, in US dollars at the time of sale, unless marked as a hammer price.