A private collection of vivid 19th century marble sculpture leads Christie’s sale The Opulent Eye – 500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe. No less than 20 lots from the collection will be included in the auction in London on September 20. They are expected to realise more than £400,000.
The group focuses on belle époque marble statuary and genre figures. Highlights include a Belgian art nouveau marble regulateur estimated at £50,000 – 100,000, (illustrated above centre). The marble long-case clock is attributed to the Symbolist sculptor Egide Rombaux (d.1942) and is carved in bas-relief with a figure of Atropos, one of three fates from Greek mythology who spin the thread of life, measure and cut it. The life-size marble figure of a female nude by Jacques de Braekeleer estimated at £40,000 – 60,000, (illustrated above left) is entitled `De Afwachting (The Expectation)’ and is thought to depict a maiden waiting for her lover, a fisherman, to return from sea. Its pendent, depicting the fisherman’s wife, and known as `The Wait’, is in the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Characteristic of other pieces from the collection is the marble figure of a maiden sipping nector, or wood nymph, by Angelo Bertozzi, which is from the Romantic school of 19th century Italian sculpture estimated at £30,000 – 50,000 (illustrated above right).
UPDATE: The Belgian marble figure of a female nude made £51,650; the clock made £61,250, the maiden sipping nectar was unsold. The auction brought in a total including buyer’s premium of £4.85 million.