Van Gogh’s Parisian Novels will be the leading lot in the Pritzker sale at Sotheby’s, New York on 20 November. Estimated at $40m, it is likely to achieve the highest price for a painting from the artist’s Paris period. The present record is $33.2m for Corner of a Garden with Butterflies (May-July 1887), which sold at Christie’s last year.
Van Gogh’s Parisian Novels in the library of the Chicago apartment of the Pritzkers
Sotheby’s
The Van Gogh still life has been consigned by the estate of Cindy Pritzker, who died in March, aged 101. Her late husband, Jay Pritzker, built up the Hyatt Hotels chain and died in 1999. Cindy, who was president of the Chicago Public Library board, had a passion for literature. This added to her enthusiasm for Parisian Novels, which depicts 22 books casually strewn across a table, along with a glass with three pink roses. The couple hung their Van Gogh in the library of their Chicago apartment.
Sotheby’s is to auction Parisian Novels along with 36 other Pritzker works on 20 November. The others, estimated at $120m, include paintings by Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse.
Parisian Novels (November-December 1887) was painted when Vincent was living with his brother Theo in the French capital. The striped wallpaper on the left of the composition, and the apparent chair-back and door on the right, suggests a room. Similar wallpaper appears in two other still lifes (one of a basket of lemons and the other of a pot of garlic chives), so the setting is most likely a particular room—presumably in Theo’s apartment in Rue Lepic.
Most of the books have yellow covers, suggesting that they are modern novels published by Charpentier in Paris (an 1888 exhibition review mentioned the painting, but with the title Volumes Charpentier). Van Gogh was a voracious reader, particularly enjoying the fiction of Emile Zola and the Goncourt brothers, both of whom were published by Charpentier.
Emile Zola’s L’Oeuvre, published by Georges Charpentier (1886), with its yellow cover. Van Gogh described being left “touched” by the novel, which is about an artist
The book-laden table with one open volume and the room setting suggests the presence of a reader, presumably the artist himself. Van Gogh saw little distinction between artists and writers, believing that one could convey emotions either through paint or words.
Shortly before painting Parisian Novels, Van Gogh made a preparatory picture, a smaller and simpler composition than the Pritzker work. This earlier piece, titled Piles of French Novels, is now at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
Van Gogh’s Piles of French Novels (October-November 1887)
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
The Scottish artist Archibald Hartrick, a friend of Van Gogh’s in Paris, recalled seeing Parisian Novels on an easel in Theo’s apartment, when the paint was probably still wet. Hartrick later described it as “the first of a series of yellow pictures”; he was presumably thinking of the Sunflowers (August 1888).
Parisian Novels was among the three paintings which were the first to be publicly exhibited during Van Gogh’s lifetime, at the Société des Artistes Indépendants in March 1888. As Vincent told Theo: “I think it’s a very good idea that you put the books in the Indépendants too. This [oil] study should be given the title: ‘Parisian novels’.” It failed to sell.
A few years after Van Gogh’s death Parisian Novels was bought by the Italian artist Antonio Mancini. It then passed to a Swiss collection and was eventually sold at Christie’s in 1988, when it fetched just over £7m, a substantial sum at that time. The painting was acquired by Robert Holmes à Court, a South African-born Australian property developer.
The Pritzkers bought Parisian Novels in 1994. They subsequently lent it to two Van Gogh exhibitions, at London’s Royal Academy of Arts (2010) and the Art Institute of Chicago (2016). Cindy was a major supporter of the Chicago gallery, funding its Pritzker Wing in 2009.
With an estimate of $40m, Parisian Novels might now just make it into the top ten most expensive Van Goghs sold at auction (until now all these have been post-Paris works, which are most sought after). To reach these dizzy heights, it would need to reach $52m, to beat Fields near Les Alpilles (November 1889).
Before the November New York auction, Parisian Novels will be shown in Abu Dhabi, at the Bassam Freiha Art Foundation (1-2 October), and then at Sotheby’s in London (9-16 October), Paris (20-24 October) and New York (8-20 November).
A garden sketch not seen for a century
Van Gogh’s Public Garden with Benches (April 1888)
Photo: Sotheby’s
Along with the Van Gogh painting, the Pritzkers also owned a drawing, Public Garden with Benches (April 1888), which they bought in 1979. It is also coming up in the Sotheby’s sale, estimated at $2.5m-$3.5m.
The sketch shows the public garden in Place Lamartine, just outside the Yellow House in Arles. The house was Van Gogh’s home from September 1888 to March 1889, his fellow artist Paul Gauguin staying with him there for two months .
Public Garden with Benches was sent to Theo, probably on the very day that Van Gogh signed the lease for the Yellow House, on 1 May 1888. Devoid of people, the sketch includes four benches, but is dominated by the trees and bushes.
It is tempting to think that the lower building just visible in the background might represent the Yellow House (if so, the smoking chimney would be on a taller building just beyond). Four days after taking on the lease Vincent wrote with excitement to Theo: “The delightful thing about this studio is the gardens opposite.”
When Public Garden with Benches goes on display at Sotheby’s in New York, it will be the first time it has been exhibited since 1910. The drawing is being reproduced here in colour for the first time.
