A Spanish Walnut and Fruitwood Trestle Table (Ernst Beyeler's Desk) , A Spanish Walnut and Fruitwood Trestle Table (Ernst Beyeler's Desk)

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The Fondation Beyeler As one of the most important European art dealers of his time, Ernst Beyeler was an inspiration for the international art world for over sixty years. In his gallery in Basel he organized some 300 exhibitions, published catalogues, co-founded Art Basel and sold thousands of art works to private collections and museums worldwide. Ernst and his wife Hildy quietly put together a world class collection of modern art for themselves. In 1982 they donated their collection to the public by creating the Beyeler Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation under Swiss law. They commissioned the Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano to design a museum building in their hometown of Riehen/Basel, close to the borders of Switzerland, Germany and France. Surrounded by an idyllic landscape, its architecture is in harmony with nature and offers 4000 square meters of ideal space to display art in natural daylight. It is a perfect home for the Beyeler Collection, comprising around 230 masterpieces of Post-Impressionist, modern, contemporary, and tribal art. Works from its collection are loaned for temporary exhibitions in prestigious museums around the globe. The Fondation Beyeler, as the museum is called, opened in 1997 and has attracted over four million visitors to date, quickly becoming Switzerland's most popular and most international art museum. It is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful private art museums in the world. The museum has made itself a reputation for curating major monographic exhibitions of important artists, including Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Henri Rousseau, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, Paul Klee, Edvard Munch, Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Piet Mondrian, Kasimir Malevich, Alberto Giacometti, René Magritte, Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Ellsworth Kelly, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Anselm Kiefer and, currently, Constantin Brancusi and Richard Serra, all accompanied by scholarly catalogues. The Fondation Beyeler also organizes large public art projects involving artists like Christo and Jeanne Claude, Jenny Holzer, Félix González-Torres and Louise Bourgeois. Furthermore it offers an ambitious programme of talks with artists, concerts and other performances as well as art education activities. Over 150 people from nine nations work at the museum, which has a budget of around 25 million USD. About 70 of the budget comes from ticket and catalogue sales, private donations and corporate sponsorship, with only 13 from public funding. The Beyeler Foundation and the Hans-Joerg Wyss Foundation cover the annual deficit. The proceeds of the sale of the Estate of Ernst Beyeler at Christie's in London will benefit the Beyeler Foundation and allow it to continue to fund its ambitious exhibition programme and the acquisition of art works for its collection. Sam Keller Director of the Fondation Beyeler Ernst Beyeler had impeccable taste. I was reminded of this time and time again by the pictures which he bought from us over the years at Christie's. The first which I remember was an 1884 Monet in the Boulton sale in 1965; another was the magisterial portrait of Cézanne's wife at the Loeb sale in 1997; a third, the arresting 1927 Picasso for which he paid $7.15 million in 2001; and much, much more besides. The Beyeler story is well known, starting from his joining a small-time book dealer to the transformation of the delightful, if idiosyncratic, rooms of number 9 Bäumleingasse, Basel, into the most prestigious art dealing concern in Europe, if not in the world. I first met him in the mid-1960s when he came regularly to the London sales accompanied always by Jean Planque, to whom he owed much, as he did to Claudia Neugebauer his trusted assistant at the gallery for so many years. It was a great pleasure to see Ernst at King St., as it was for three generations of Christie's specialists to visit him in his understated but beautiful offices in Bämleingasse. Ernst Beyeler's legacy is his Foundation and its wonderful museum in Riehen, which now is so ably martialled by Sam Keller. The pictures, sculptures and prints now being sold are from his personal estate and the funds will all go to the institution which bears his name and which - unsurprisingly - continues to draw ever larger crowds from all over the world. He was indeed a special friend and client. John Lumley May 4, 2011 With this sale, a long success story draws to a close as the Gallery at Bäumleingasse 9 in the center of Basel closes its doors. As this chapter in history comes to a dignified end, the proceeds of this sale will go to the Beyeler Foundation which will live on in our hearts and minds for a long time to come, as the founders, Ernst and Hildy Beyeler, would have wished. Claudia Neugebauer Director

A Spanish Walnut and Fruitwood Trestle Table (Ernst Beyeler's Desk)

Details

A Spanish Walnut and Fruitwood Trestle Table (Ernst Beyeler's Desk)
The rectangular top above trestle supports and S-shaped iron brackets
Height: 30 in. (76 cm.);
Width: 94¾ in. (241 cm.);
Depth: 29¼ in. (74 cm.)
Executed in the second half of the 17th century

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 20% on the buyer's premium.

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Adrienne Dumas

adumas@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2376

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