René Magritte | L'utopie (Utopia), 1945

Painted in June 1945, René Magritte (Belgian surrealist artist, 1898-1967) himself described the scene in L'utopie in his publication, Dix tableaux de Magritte précédes de descriptions, published the following year.

There, he explained that, 'The rose is alone on an island'..

This sense of the solitude of the flower, already emphasised by the span of the distant horizon and the vastness of the ocean, is thus reinforced by Magritte's statement and his own declared intention.

How did the rose reach this island?

René Magritte | L'utopie (Utopia), 1945

This strange and solitary bloom is a glimpse of the poetic and the mysterious, even the miraculous, and is all the more striking as an image of hope in the wake of the Occupation of Belgium, which had only recently ended.

The promontory and the rose in L'utopie appear to have been painted in the mock-Impressionist style that Magritte referred to as Surréalisme en plein soleil.

Where his earlier works had deliberately avoided a sense of 'style' in the rendering of their strange and incongruous subjects, he now added an extra layer of the incongruous by emphasising the painting's status as a subjective representation of the world, while also taking advantage of the association between Impressionism and Realism.

He thus introduced a tension between a style of painting associated with capturing a moment of fleeting 'reality' and his own surreal, poetic universe, while also providing a glimpse of sunlight during the dark days of the Second World War.

At the same time, he revelled in shocking even his most ardent followers by deliberately and irreverently adopting a style that was then associated with bourgeois taste.

Magritte's Surrealism was intended to jolt his viewers out of a complacent understanding of the world around them, but he was aware that his own admirers and followers had developed expectations of his works.

L'utopie and its sister-works of sunlit Surrealism shocked his viewers out of their complacent understandings of his pictures and of the universe alike.

The first owner of L'utopie was Achille Chavée, a writer, friend of Magritte and leading member of the Hainaut group of Surrealists who owned several of the artist's pictures.

During the period that L'utopie was painted, the pair collaborated extensively on a large exhibition of Belgian Surrealism that was held at the Galerie des Editions La Boétie in Brussels, an exhibition that was dominated by Magritte's own works, a fitting reflection of his importance to Surrealism in that nation. | Source: © Christie's

Rene Magritte in front of his painting, 1964 | Christie's

Dipinto nel giugno 1945, René Magritte (Artista surrealista Belga, 1898-1967) stesso descrisse la scena in L'utopie nella sua pubblicazione, Dix tableaux de Magritte précédes de descriptions, pubblicata l'anno seguente.

Lì, spiegò che "la rosa è sola su un'isola".

Questo senso di solitudine del fiore, già enfatizzato dalla distanza dell'orizzonte lontano e dalla vastità dell'oceano, è quindi rafforzato dall'affermazione di Magritte e dalla sua stessa dichiarata intenzione.

Come ha fatto la rosa a raggiungere quest'isola?

Questa strana e solitaria fioritura è uno scorcio del poetico e del misterioso, persino del miracoloso, ed è tanto più sorprendente come immagine di speranza sulla scia dell'occupazione del Belgio, che era appena terminata.

Il promontorio e la rosa in L'utopie sembrano essere stati dipinti nello stile finto-impressionista che Magritte chiamava Surréalisme en plein soleil.

Laddove le sue opere precedenti avevano deliberatamente evitato un senso di "stile" nella resa dei loro soggetti strani ed incongrui, ora aggiungeva un ulteriore strato di incongruo enfatizzando lo status del dipinto come rappresentazione soggettiva del mondo, sfruttando anche l'associazione tra impressionismo e realismo.

Introduceva così una tensione tra uno stile di pittura associato alla cattura di un momento di "realtà" fugace ed il suo universo surreale e poetico, offrendo anche uno scorcio di luce solare durante i giorni bui della seconda guerra mondiale.

Allo stesso tempo, si dilettava a scandalizzare persino i suoi seguaci più ardenti adottando deliberatamente e irriverentemente uno stile che era allora associato al gusto borghese.

Il Surrealismo di Magritte intendeva scuotere i suoi spettatori da una comprensione compiacente del mondo che li circondava, ma era consapevole che i suoi ammiratori e seguaci avevano sviluppato delle aspettative nei confronti delle sue opere.

L'utopie e le sue opere gemelle del Surrealismo illuminato dal sole sconvolsero i suoi spettatori dalla loro comprensione compiacente dei suoi quadri e dell'universo.

Il primo proprietario di L'utopie fu Achille Chavée, uno scrittore, amico di Magritte e membro di spicco del gruppo surrealista dell'Hainaut che possedeva diversi quadri dell'artista.

Durante il periodo in cui L'utopie fu dipinto, la coppia collaborò ampiamente ad una grande mostra del Surrealismo belga che si tenne alla Galerie des Editions La Boétie di Bruxelles, una mostra che fu dominata dalle opere dello stesso Magritte, un riflesso appropriato della sua importanza per il Surrealismo in quella nazione. | Fonte: © Christie's

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Fragments and studies

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was fascinated by hats and their infinite array of trimmings.

To quote the model-turned-painter Suzanne Valadon: "Renoir particularly loved women's hats... he never ceased buying lots of hats".

The millinery trade was a thriving industry in Paris during the second half of the 19th century.

When the vogue for hats reached its peak, Paris was home to about 1,000 milliners.

Since hats represented the most variable accessory in a wardrobe, even women with moderate means owned several.

In this kaleidoscopic sketch, Renoir lavished his attention on the hats, while the heads are no more individualized than mannequins.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Study of Heads, 1890 | Barnes Foundation

Egon Schiele | Herbstsonne, 1914

Herbstsonne (Autumn Sun) is a lost masterpiece of Schiele's art unseen since 1942 and thought, until now, to have been destroyed in the Second World War.

One of Schiele's (1890-1918) most important paintings and among the finest of all his landscapes, it is the culmination of a central theme in Schiele's work that had preoccupied him since first coming to artistic maturity in 1910.

Using landscape as an allegory of a human emotion, Herbstsonne is an 'Expressionist' landscape in the truest sense of the word and a masterpiece of the unique and precarious time in which it was made.

Egon Schiele | Herbstsonne, 1914 | Christies

René Magritte | Le Préméditation, 1943

"Before the war, my paintings expressed anxiety", René Magritte explained, "but the experiences of war have taught me that what matters in art is to express charm.

"I live in a very disagreeable world, and my work is meant as a counter-offensive".

Painted during the final months of 1943, Le Préméditation is one of the earliest in a series known as Le Surréalisme en plein soleil (Surrealism in sunshine), created by Belgian Surrealist René Magritte (1898-1967) during the turbulent years of the Second World War in the hope of re-enchanting daily life.

A radiant bouquet of springtime flowers all improbably sprouting from the same plant, Le Préméditation captures a magnificent vision of optimism and hope.

René Magritte | Premeditation, 1943 | Christie’s

Claude Monet | Deux femmes en barque, 1887

In 1883, Claude Monet (1840-1926) acquired a property in Giverny, a small village in his native Normandy.

Over the next several decades, the artist transformed the isolated, overgrown grounds that surrounded his new home into a lush private paradise, replete with overflowing flowerbeds, sweeping willow trees, wisteria vines, and an infamous waterlily pond.

This curated gardenscape would ultimately inspire some of the artist’s most infamous works in the second half of his career.

Claude Monet | Deux femmes en barque, 1887 | Christie's

Camille Pissarro at the Christie's

Camille Pissarro | Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, 1881

In Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, painted in 1881, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) depicts a group of five young women harvesting peas on the rural outskirts of Pontoise, a bustling market town about forty kilometers northwest of Paris where he and his family had lived for over a decade.

Pissarro had first treated the theme of picking peas in two oils the previous year, and he returned to the motif at least three times following his move to the agrarian hamlet of Éragny in 1884.

Camille Pissarro | Paysannes travaillant dans les champs, Pontoise, 1881 | Christie's

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Jeune fille au chapeau, 1895

Portraits of children were amongst Renoir's favourite themes and feature strongly in the artist's painting of the 1890s.

Over the previous decade Renoir had been commissioned to paint the children of a number of celebrated patrons, including the Lerolles and the Berards.

These commissions gave the artist a renewed interest in portraiture in the 1890s and Renoir painted a number of non-commissioned portraits in addition to more formal requests.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Jeune fille au chapeau, 1895 | Christie's

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | The Rocks of L’Estaque, 1882

This is one of a small series of radiant landscapes that the Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted during a stay with Paul Cézanne in L'Estaque, a small fishing port just west of Marseilles.

Renoir, who was travelling back to Paris having spent the previous months in Algeria and Italy, was immediately captivated by the raw light and rich beauty of the Provençal landscape.

"How beautiful it is!" he wrote to a friend, "It's certainly the most beautiful place in the world, and not yet inhabited… There are only some fishermen and the mountains…so there are no walls, no properties or few…here I have the true countryside at my doorstep".

Paul Signac | Port-en-Bessin, the Outer Harbour, 1884

Paul Signac | Port-en-Bessin, the Outer Harbour, 1884 | Christie's

In his luminous seascape painting of 1884, Paul Signac (1863-1935) recorded his impressions of the outer harbour of Port-en-Bessin.

The scene is suffused with the golden afternoon sunlight, which casts a benevolent warmth over natural and manmade elements alike.

The choppy, dappled surface of the deep blue water reflects a myriad of other colours: the pale rocks and velvety-green grass of the surrounding cliffs, the colourful houses nestled in the crevice of the valley, and the brilliant blue of the sky above.

Paul Signac | Port-en-Bessin, the Outer Harbour, 1884 | Source: © Christie's

James Sant | Courage, Anxiety and Despair: Watching the Battle, 1850-60

At his death in 1916, at the age of ninety-six, James Sant, R.A., C.V.0. (British painter, 1820-1916) was the longest living member of the Royal Academy since the institution's foundation in 1768, having exhibited well over two hundred pictures during a period of seventy-six years.

Sant was a prolific artist who worked his way through a range of influences, including symbolism (as in this effort) and impressionism.

James Sant | Courage, Anxiety and Despair: Watching the Battle, 1850 | Christie's

Childe Hassam | Geraniums, 1888-1889

From: Christie's

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Following a successful career in Boston, in 1886 the celebrated American Impressionist Childe Hassam (1859-1935) journeyed to Paris with his wife Maud where he would remain until 1889.

During this time in the summer months, the Hassams visited the country home of German businessman Ernest Blumenthal and his wife, who was friends with Mrs. Hassam, in Villiers-Le-Bel, a small town ten miles northeast of Paris in the Val d’Oise.

Eastman Johnson | At the Closing of the Day, 1878-80

Beginning in 1870 Eastman Johnson (American painter and co-founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, 1824-1906) produced a string of anecdotal narrative subjects depicting daily life on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts.

In the years after the Civil War, Johnson drew upon the visual character of the island and its inhabitants to portray everyday scenes which rank among the artist's most memorable paintings.

In an effort to find new and relevant subject matter, the painter found inspiration in the quiet whaling community of Nantucket. Johnson relished the island's simple way of life, its setting, and its population which offered models of distinctive appearance and character.

Edvard Munch | Summer Evening in Åsgårdstrand, 1891

In October 1889, aged twenty-five, Edvard Munch left his native Norway for an extended stay in France, supported by an artist’s grant from the Norwegian State. The terms of his bursary stipulated that he enroll in a traditional art school, but he lasted only a few weeks in Léon Bonnat’s studio before storming out during a dispute over color.

Instead, for the next two and a half years, Munch steeped himself in French modernism, returning home only for summer holidays.

He absorbed the plein air ethos of Impressionism at the Galeries Durand-Ruel and Georges Petit; at the Salon des Indépendants, he encountered the latest work of Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh.

Edvard Munch | Summer Evening in Åsgårdstrand, 1891

Jean-Louis Hamon | Aurora, 1864

Left a sum of 500 francs, Jean-Louis Hamon (1821-1874) was able to pursue his artistic tastes with ease. He gained advice from Ingres and entered L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1842.

He designed at Sevres from 1848-1853 and exhibited at the Salon from 1847.

He gained several medals including a silver in 1867 at the Exposition Universelle.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir at the Christie's

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Alexei Harlamoff | The Arrangement, 1880

"The Arrangement" was painted in the mid-1880s, during the best period of Harlamoff's life, when he was popular and admired.

'Straightforward of subject, superlative of execution, and true to beauty... All is simple, there is no mendacious elegance'

- these are the words of Emile Zola describing another of Harlamoff's works and which can also be applied with perfection to "The Arrangement".

Pierre-Albert Marquet (1875-1947)

Albert Marquet was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement.

He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse.

Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturalistic style, primarily landscapes, but also several portraits and, between 1910-1914, several female figure paintings.

Shen Hanwu 沈漢武, 1950 | Genre painter

Shen Hanwu was born in Wuhan, Hubei province.

In the 1980s, he became famous as a book illustrator. In 1986, Shen entered Wuhan Art Academy and became a professional artist.

Throughout the 1990s his oil paintings were frequently exhibited in national fine art exhibitions and in 1995, Shen became a member of the Chinese National Artists Association.

Alexandre Cabanel | Samson and Delilah, 1878

Delilah, also spelled Dalila, in the Old Testament, the central figure of Samson’s last love story (Judges 16).

She was a Philistine who, bribed to entrap Samson, coaxed him into revealing that the secret of his strength was his long hair, whereupon she took advantage of his confidence to betray him to his enemies. Her name has since become synonymous with a voluptuous, treacherous woman.

Alexandre Cabanel | Ophelia, 1883

Christie's | Remaining faithful to historical and literary subjects as themes for his paintings, this work depicts perhaps the most complex and vivid of characters immortalised in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia.

Such a captivating character, she has held the fascination of artists for centuries, widely portrayed by Victorian masters in particular, such as Sir Thomas Francis Dicksee, John Everett Millais and John William Waterhouse among others.