ABOVE: Mask, tatanua.
New Ireland.
Wood, pigments. H: 64 cm.
Ex Übersee Museum, Bremen (inv.
D14304), deacquisitioned in 1974;
Walter Kaiser.
To be offered by De Baecque et
associés, Paris, on June 25 and 26,
2018, est. 30,000–50,000 euros.
28
THE ANDRAULT COLLECTION
PARIS—Auctioneers De Baecque et Associés will offer
the collection of Michel and Catherine Andrault at the
Hôtel Drouot on June 25 and 26, 2018. This artist couple—
he an architect and sculptor, she a ceramicist and
watercolorist—assembled a huge collection of tribal art
over the course of fifty years. It evolved as a function of
their many travels around the world together. Collectors
who attend this sale will find a wide variety of objects as
well as of provenances, all of which attest to the couple’s
limitless curiosity and their unique aesthetic sensibility.
RIGHT: Seated fi gure.
Mbembe, Nigeria.
Wood.
Liliane and Michel Durand-Dessert
Collection, to be offered by Christie’s,
Paris, June 27, 2018, estimate on
request.
LEFT: Reliquary guardian
fi gure. Fang, Gabon.
Wood.
Liliane and Michel Durand-Dessert
Collection, to be offered by Christie’s,
Paris, June 27, 2018, est. 500,000–
700,000 euros.
BELOW LEFT: Female fi gure.
Bassa, Liberia.
Wood.
Liliane and Michel Durand-Dessert
Collection, to be offered by Christie’s,
Paris, June 27, 2018, est. 800,000–
1,200,000 euros.
BELOW: Head, known as
“buste de la prêtresse.”
Fon, Republic of Benin.
Wood.
Liliane and Michel Durand-Dessert
Collection, to be offered by Christie’s,
Paris, June 27, 2018, est. 500,000–
800,000 euros.
ART IN MOTION
DURAND-DESSERT AT CHRISTIE’S
PARIS—On June 27, 2018, Christie’s will offer one of the
most singular collections of African art in the world—that
of Michel and Liliane Durand-Dessert. The collection is
well known to aficionados, having been presented publicly
in 2004 at the L’art au futur antérieur exhibition at
the Musée de Grenoble, and then again at the Monnaie
de Paris in a show titled Fragments du vivant—Sculptures
Africains dans la collection Durand-Dessert (Fragments
of the Living—African Sculptures from the Durand
Dessert Collection) in conjunction with the 2008
Parcours des Mondes. This assemblage of major artworks
is an intimate reflection of the highly developed
taste—as personal as it is cutting edge—of a pair of true
connoisseurs who distinguished themselves as art dealers
in the art of the post-war years. This work involved
emerging talents such as Barry Flanagan, Joseph Beuys,
and the Italian artists of the Arte Povera movement. The
Christie’s sale will feature 105 lots, many masterpieces
among them, and is expected to bring in between seven
and eleven million euros. Prominent among these is a
famous Nigerian Mbembe figure, the eroded surface of
which attests to its great age and its prolonged exposure
to the elements. The renowned “buste de la prêtresse”
from the Fon of Benin, which was discovered in Abomey
in 1928 and subsequently owned by Louis Carré, is another
major highlight, as is a Bassa sculpture from Liberia,
unique in its genre and illustrated in the 1988 book L’art
Africain. Excitement is already building for this important
sale, and the bidding will undoubtedly reflect this.