It was not until June that a bidding battle at Christie's in Paris raised René Magritte's melancholy and enigmatic picture in “La vengeance” to 12.5 million euros (estimate 6/10 million).
Three works by the Belgian surrealist will go under the hammer at Sotheby's on October 26th.
“L'art de la conversation” from 1950, estimated at nine to twelve million, could provide an auction moment: in the painting opposing moods communicate.
A romantic moon and star sky makes the rippled waves of a lake shimmer with two swans;
however, a silhouette-like tree landscape sparks in between as a threatening shadow.
On closer inspection, the word Amour emerges from this.
Magritte kept the painting, which was just under fifty by sixty centimeters, with him for many years before deciding to sell it.
In addition, his sensual, surreal act “L'ingénue” (3.5 / 5.5 million) and an erotic-symbolic “Perspective amoureuse” (1.4 / 1.8 million) will be called.
The overall expectation is high
A rarity on the market is the small “Merz” assemblage by Kurt Schwitters, which is valued at 2.5 to 3.5 million euros.
The Dada artist provided the abstract tableau “Untitled (Your Treufrischer)” with the dedication “For my dear Syndetikon”;
he meant his friend Raoul Hausmann, to whom he probably gave it in 1921.
The high overall expectation for the "Modernités" offer with only 35 exquisite lots - including a dangerously yawning hippopotamus by Rembrandt Bugatti (1.5 / 2 million) and a Janus-headed Sanufo helmet mask (300,000 / 500,000) - is around thirty million euros .