William Bouguereau | Joueur de flûte, 1878

In his accounts, Bouguereau gave a title of Tête d’enfant avec une flûte to the present work, yet the instrument depicted more closely resembles a piffero, an Italian folk instrument related to the modern oboe, which was used by the musical troupes who would descend from the hills around Rome to celebrate Christmas.

Both the music and the sweet expression of Bouguereau’s young musician likely evoked the artist’s happy memories of travel to Italy in the late 1840s.

Bouguereau had painted young musicians as early as 1870 in works like Pifferaro (Bartoli, no. 1870/80, and sold in these rooms April 18, 2007, lot 90).

Ludovico Carracci | The penitent Saint Peter, 1613

Although mentioned by Ludovico's earliest biographer Malvasia as early as 1678, all trace of this monumental and imposing image of repentance was lost until its rediscovery only thirty years ago.

Malvasia recorded how Ludovico had given to Count Camillo Bolognetti, a nobleman and occasional amateur painter in the Carracci workshop, 'la figura intera di quel S. Pietro piangente, così risentito e terribile'.

In a handwritten note included in the 1841 edition of his Felsina pittrice the picture is referred to as 'San Pietro piangente l'aversi negato discepolo di Cristo, figura sedente, meno del naturale'.

Vincent van Gogh | Fleurs dans un verre (Auvers, 1890)

"Fleurs dans un verre" belongs to a very small group of floral still lifes that Vincent van Gogh completed in his seventy day residency in Auvers-sur-Oise, where he would bring his life to an end in the height of the summer of 1890.

In his seventy days in Auvers, van Gogh would paint seventy or so canvases, a huge output by any measure.

Many of these canvases represent the village of Auvers itself and its immediate surroundings. There are also major portraits and, rarer still, still lifes such as Fleurs dans un verre. | © Sotheby's

Vincent van Gogh | Fleurs dans un verre (Auvers, 1890)

Paul Gauguin | Natura morta con manghi, 1893

"Natura morta con manghi" fu probabilmente eseguito a Tahiti, durante il primo viaggio del pittore Francese Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) nell'isola nel 1891-93, anche se Georges Wildenstein suggerisce che potrebbe risalire alla sua seconda visita nei Mari del Sud, intorno al 1896.

Ispirato dal lussureggiante ambiente che lo circonda, "Natura morta con manghi" incarna la ricerca per tutta la vita dell'artista del primitivo e mostra la stessa vivacità ed atmosfera sensuale e la tavolozza luminosa e calda che caratterizzava i suoi celebri paesaggi tahitiani e dipinti di figure. | © Sotheby's

Roderic O'Conor | Romeo and Juliet, 1898-1900

This extraordinary painting, Roderic O'Conor's answer to "The Kiss"🎨 by Edvard Munch, belongs to a group of imaginative compositions the Irish artist🎨 worked on during the closing years of the nineteenth century.

Living in isolation in the small Breton town of Rochefort-en-terre, whilst keeping in touch by letter with Gauguin🎨, de Chamaillard and Seguin, O'Conor composed from memory to create works of Symbolist🎨 intent.

Claude Monet | A bouquet of gladioli, lilies and daisies, 1878

Painted in 1878, Monet’s "Bouquet of gladioli, lilies and daisies" / "Bouquet de glaïeuls, lis et marguerites" - beautifully demonstrates the artist’s ability to evoke the lavishness and vitality of flowers, rendering them with extraordinary freshness and spontaneity.

Paul Gauguin | Petit Breton à l'Oie, 1889

This important depiction of the Breton countryside is one of the pictures that Gauguin completed in 1889, when he was working in Pont Aven.

Executed with lush colors and linear undulations that presage his pictures of the tropics, this composition presents an exoticized depiction of the region, interpreted through the stylization of Gauguin’s late Symbolist aesthetic.

The romanticizing of the natural world in this picture is indicative of Gauguin's desire to escape the trappings of industrialized France in the months prior to his departure for the South Pacific. | © Sotheby's

Guillaume Seignac | Reunited, 1918-1919

This work was probably executed by Guillaume Seignac (French Academic painter, 1870-1924) in 1918-1919.

It represents two women symbolizing France and Alsace.

Seignac painted another composition in 1914, representing "Belgium, France and England before the German invasion" (Sale, Paris, April 22nd 2009, lot 87).

Pierre-Auguste Renoir | L'Église à Essoyes, 1890

The great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir🎨 lived in the charming little village of Essoyes, in the Aube department of Champagne-Ardennes (in north-central France) from 1896-1907.

The village, hometown of his wife Aline and model and governess of his children Gabrielle Renard, is represented in many of his paintings.

Michael Ancher | Skagen girl in a red shawl, 1881

Michael Peter Ancher (1849-1927) came to Skagen in 1874 at the age of 25, and he was the only one of the visiting artists who settled permanently in the town. He grew up on the island of Bornholm, and at the age of 16, he began his apprenticeship as a clerk at the Kalø Manor in Djursland.

Here, he began to draw and paint in his spare time, and in 1871 he was accepted as a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Here, he met Karl Madsen, among others, who encouraged him to go to Skagen.

William Bouguereau | L’Orientale à la grenade, 1875

At the close of the 1860s, William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s (1825-1905) reputation had been secured by his masterful portrayals of peasant life in the French countryside.

Yet the artist did not limit himself in sources of inspiration and, like many of his contemporaries, became interested in the people and culture of North Africa and the Middle East.

Konstantin Gorbatov | Boats in a Harbour, 1928

Charmed by Italy’s romantic aesthetics and inspired by its warmth and light, the Post-Impressionist artist Konstantin Ivanovich Gorbatov (1876-1945) created some of his most accomplished paintings while living on the island of Capri in the early 1920s.

Gorbatov and his wife emigrated to Berlin in 1926, but he returned annually to Italy until the beginning of World War II.

The monumental Boats in a Harbour, dated 1928, is an exquisite example of Gorbatov’s strength as a colourist and his bold mastery of light and shadow.

Renoir | Port de Marseille, le Fort Saint-Jean, 1906

In the early 1880s Pierre-Auguste Renoir made his first forays abroad; he had previously traveled no further from Paris than Normandy. The years of 1881-1884 however saw Renoir in a variety of disparate locations including Algeria, Italy and the French Riviera.

It was on these journeys that he stepped away from rendering purely figure-based compositions, rather creating an interesting series of landscapes to record his new surroundings.

There is no doubt that these travels deeply affected Renoir and his art, and indeed he would return repeatedly to the South of France, eventually choosing to settle permanently in Cagnes-sur-Mer in the early 1900s.

William Bouguereau | Le citron, 1899

In late February, 1899, William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) traveled to the south of France with his wife, Elizabeth, and son, Paul.

Doctors had recommended the warm and sunny climate to help Paul, as he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis the year before.

They went to the picturesque seaside town of Menton and took up residence in the Hôtel des Îles Britanniques, where they would stay until late May.

While Bouguereau was committed to supporting his son's health, he was not content to leave his studio, commissions and pupils.

Diego Rivera | Portrait of a Spaniard, 1912

The illustrious Salon d’Automne - from its inception the world’s leading avant-garde venue along with the Salon des Artistes Indépendants - opened its annual exhibition at the Grand Palais on October 1, 1912.

Displaying over seventeen hundred paintings and sculptures to an expectant Parisian public, it included a portrait section of nineteenth century paintings all executed by French artists and, most notoriously, a gallery of increasingly scandalous and rejected Cubist works such as La Maison Cubiste, a three dimensional installation that housed works by Duchamp, Léger, Gleizes and others.

Joaquin Sorolla | Siesta in the Garden, 1904

While his beautiful young daughters Maria and Elena dozed in the warm afternoon sun, Joaquín Sorolla captured this sparkling glimpse of the garden and sea coast that his family enjoyed during his summer painting campaign of 1904.

Already well known and internationally acclaimed for his pictures of the fishing folk of his native Valencia, Sorolla was determined during the early years of the new century to expand his subject matter and to broaden the audience for his light-filled paintings.

Vincenzo Irolli | La treccia recisa, 1920

Stilisticamente vicino a lavori licenziati da Vincenzo Irolli intorno alla prima metà degli anni venti quali Rose di maggio, In villeggiatura o Il bandolo, La treccia recisa appartiene ad un piccolo nucleo di dipinti dedicati dal pittore napoletano a soggetti di ispirazione giapponese.

Claude Monet | Coucher de soleil à Pourville, pleine mer, 1882

The brilliant sunset over the Channel as seen from Pourville inspired this radically modern composition of 1882.

Monet has captured the moment when the sun has just fallen below the horizon and the sky is diffused with hazy tones of pink and purple that reflect off the surface of the sea.

The sight must have been irresistible for this painter of light, and the resulting composition evidences Monet's mastery of this genre.

James Tissot | A visit to the yacht, c. 1873

James-Joseph-Jacques Tissot (1836-1902) arrived in London in the summer of 1871 and almost from the first he was drawn to the river Thames as a subject for his elegant paintings.

Perhaps the water and the associated sounds and sights of the bustling docks reminded him of his childhood in the seaport of Nantes, or maybe he realised that painting life at the edge of the river opened a wealth of subjects for him to explore and attract a new audience.