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.

Paul Gauguin | Bonjour Monsieur Gauguin, 1889

Paul Gauguin | Bonjour Monsieur Gauguin, 1889 | National Gallery in Prague

Gustave Courbet, the perhaps most famous exponent of Realism in French painting, created a number of sensational paintings.

Standing out among them is the work “The Meeting or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet” of 1854, in which Courbet shows himself out wandering, whereby he encounters his patron Alfred Bruyas and his servant. Bruyas supported Courbet and purchased the large-format painting.

When it was exhibited at the Paris World Exhibition of 1855, the audacity of the painter, who presented himself with abundant self-confidence and in a much more favourable light than his patron, was not lost on spectators.

Paul Gauguin | Washerwomen, 1888 | MoMA

Paul Gauguin | Washerwomen, 1888 | MoMA

In October 1888, Gauguin arrived in Arles where his friend Vincent Van Gogh had invited him to come and work.

The two artists had been writing to each other for several months, recording progress on their attempts to produce a non-naturalist landscape.

Paul Gauguin | Young Man with a Flower behind his Ear, 1891

Originally in the collection of the great modern master Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin's striking and evocative portrait of a young man, clad in a pink European blouse and loose cravat, with the native adornment of a small white tiaré blossom tucked over his left ear, is among the first paintings the artist completed after arriving in Tahiti in 1891.

The forthright charm of this painting stems from Gauguin's sensitive characterization of his sitter, a handsome and thoughtful man of whom the artist was clearly quite fond.

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).

Peter Demetz, 1969

Born in Bolzano, Italy, awarded🎨 sculptor Peter Demetz lives and works in Ortisei (BZ).

He graduated from the Art Institute of Ortisei, he was an apprentice in the laboratory of master Heinrich Demetz.

In 1993 he obtained the master sculptor diploma.

Since then he has participated in group and solo exhibitions in Ortisei, Milan, Vail/ Colorado, Leipzig, Lichtenstein, Vienna, Florence, Bolzano, Lecce, Istanbul, Palma de Mallorca and Rome.