Property from the Francey and Dr. Martin L. Gecht Collection Francey and Martin Gecht started their collecting life together in the 1960s. Beginning with Japanese wood block prints they swiftly transferred their interests to the lithographs of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and gradually expanded the scope to include Nineteenth and Twentieth Century American and European Works on Paper, Prints, and Sculpture. The collection was the subject of a notable exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago in 2003-2004. An inspection of the collection housed above Lake Shore Drive in Chicago revealed the passion and intelligence of the collectors. By hanging prints, drawings and watercolors together, the Gechts set up conversations between the various periods of individual artists' works, between artistic contemporaries and with artists who preceded or succeeded them. In their quest they worked closely with staff of The Art Institute, most specifically with the late Harold Joachim, Douglas Druick and Suzanne Folds McCullough. Martin joined the Committee on Prints and Drawings in 1975 and the Gechts were regular contributors to the collection. They were further guided by various dealers, most notably Alice Adam and Bud Holland. The arrangement of the works of art in the rooms overlooking Lake Michigan was a reflection of the Gecht's love of their objects. Once the walls were full, the Gechts began to incorporate sculpture into their collection. One of their earliest purchases was the great Alexander Calder reclining nude which was followed shortly thereafter by sculptures by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti among others. Following their generous gift to the Art Institute of a large number of prints and drawings from the collection, Mrs. Gecht decided to consign to Christie's a group of sculpture for our spring sales of Impressionist and Modern Art on May 4th and 5th and Post War and Contemporary Art on May 11th and 12th. The Toulouse Lautrec La Goulue will be offered in the Print sale on May 3rd and the oldest work in the collection, a second century figure of Isis will be offered in the Antiquities sale on June 8th. Property from the Francey and Dr. Martin L. Gecht Collection

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

Jaguar dévorant un lièvre, d'après Barye, Le Tigre

细节

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Jaguar dévorant un lièvre, d'après Barye, Le Tigre
signed with initials and numbered 'HM 2/10' (on the back right side)
and stamped with foundry mark and stamped 'C. VALSUANI CIRE PERDUE BRONZE' (on the back left side)
bronze with brown patina
Height: 8 5/8 in. (22 cm.)
Length: 22 in. (55.9 cm.)
Conceived in Paris, 1899-1901; this bronze version cast in 1952

来源

Galerie Samlaren (Agnes Widlund), Stockholm.
Pelle Borjesson, Göteborg.
Hannover Gallery (Erica Brausen), London.
B.C. Holland, Chicago.
Howard A. Weiss, Chicago.
Acquired from the above by the present owners, 1984.

出版

A.E. Elsen, The Sculpture of Henri Matisse, New York, 1972, pp. 18-21 (another cast illustrated, pp. 18-19 and 21).
J. Jacobs, Henri Matisse, New York, 1972, p. 53, no. 61 (another cast illustrated, p. 54).
A.H. Barr Jr., Matisse: His Art and His Public, New York, 1951, p. 52.
I. Monod-Fontaine, The Sculpture of Henri Matisse, London, 1984, p. 145 (another cast illustrated, pl. 2).
P. Schneider, Matisse, London, 1984, p. 542 (another cast illustrated).
J. Flam, Matisse, The Man and His Art, 1869-1918, Ithaca, New York, 1986, pp. 73, 75-77, 88, 103 and 360 (another cast illustrated, fig. 57, p. 76).
C. Duthuit and W. de Guébriant, Henri Matisse, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre sculpté, Paris, 1997, p. 6, no. 4 (another cast illustrated, p. 7).
H. Spurling, The Unknown Matisse: A Life of Henri Matisse, The Early Years, 1869-1908, 1998, pp. 212-213 (another cast illustrated, p. 212).

拍品专文

Jaguar devorant un lièvre is the first sculpture that Matisse modeled fully in three dimensions. Toward the end of 1899, Matisse attended evening sculpture classes at the Ecole de la Ville de Paris. As he had done in his painting, he decided to launch himself into this new medium by copying a work in the Louvre. He chose Antoine-Louis Barye's Jaguar devorant un lièvre, which had been in the Salon of 1851. Jack Flam supposes that Matisse "sought out a sculpture of a non-human subject in order to avoid confounding the discoveries he was making in painting with whatever he might learn from modeling in clay. The violent subject matter seemed to have fulfilled some inner need for Matisse at this time, when he was experiencing great frustration. While he was struggling to find a place in the artistic milieu of Paris, such contemporaries as Vuillard and Bonnard were forging ahead" (op. cit., pp. 75-76).

Matisse drew numerous studies of Barye's sculpture at the Louvre and even blindfolded himself as he modeled on his copy to increase his awareness of tactile form. To understand the musculature of his subject he studied a flayed cat that had been prepared for him by the Ecole de Beaux Arts anatomy class and mounted on a wooden plank. He later studied human musculature by copying an écorché, a sculpture of a flayed man, attributed to Pierre Puget; see lot 283.