Tableaux anciens et du XIXe siècle

Music is at the heart of two masterpieces featured in this sale. A Caravaggesque Young man in a plumed hat playing a lute, recently attributed with certainty to the Dutch painter Willem Bartsius, becomes a memento mori with all the classical attributes of a vanitas, despite the affable appearance of its figure. The young musician by Michel Garnier is a vividly coloured genre scene and is remarkably well conserved. Other top lots include the pendant of Rest, a treasure of the Fine Arts Museum of Dijon, signed by Jean-Francois Gilles, called Colson. Fresh to the market from a private collection, Action juxtaposes the sleep of a young girl to the war game of a little boy. The Loch Carron is a highlight of the sale’s 19th century paintings, exhibited at the Parisian Salon of 1880 by Gustave Doré, to whom an exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay is currently dedicated.