Fine Art

Painter Franz Roubaud is considered a master of large, intricate compositions that are divided into several layers. The viewer ascends these different levels and searches for figures and details. Roubaud’s works are therefore a veritable journey into a distant and exotic world. The scene presented by The Cossacks’ Camp combines all elements that make a Roubaud: a masterfully executed composition in which colourful groups of horsemen and animals are in contrast to the earthy colours of the mountainscape, which probably shows the Caucasus (estimate: €100,000–150,000). The precise portraits of Caucasian horses, for which the artist is also known, presents the proud animals as the protagonists of the painting. The author of the catalogue raisonée, Olga Sugrobova-Roth, appraised the work in its original and included it in the online supplement of the catalogue. It constitutes a welcome and previously unknown rediscovery in Roubaud’s oeuvre.

After the successful sales of large-scale views of Italy by Oswald Achenbach at the Fine Art sale last Autumn, atmospheric views of Rome and the Campagna will be called up this Spring. The View of Castello Aragonese on Ischia takes up the theme of the painting that was auctioned in November 2024, but on a larger and more monumental scale. Achenbach uses soft, warm colours to immortalize a cozy Italian afternoon where a small group of people from different backgrounds and social strata are crowded together at a beach. The small sailboat that appears in front of the island with its white glow serves as an excellent element of perspective that lends depth to the composition (estimate: €25,000–35,000). The setting of the spectacular painting Large Procession at the Colosseum is the city rather than the quiet, peaceful Italian landscape. The artist immortalizes a moment of the piety of the people that gets lost in the bustle of Roman everyday life. Splendour and eternity thus blend with poverty and everyday life, and the sacred with the profane. In this way Achenbach manages to depict contradictions in a single painting (estimate: €20,000–30,000).

Coming September, the exhibition Künstlerinnen! Von Monjé bis Münter (Women Artists! From Monjé to Münter) will open at the Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf. The exhibition is dedicated to the works of 30 selected women artists who worked in Düsseldorf at a time when they were not admitted as students at the renowned Art Academy. They include Emilie Preyer, whose works Van Ham has been marketing to great success for decades. Consequently, the artist has become one of the company’s main attractions. During the upcoming sale, another one of her exquisite still lifes will be called up. Here Preyer presents grapes, peaches and an apricot on an immaculate tablecloth in a masterful way. The work also depicts dried fruits and drops of water that show the artist’s skill in handling varied surfaces. This time the little fly, which makes a regular appearance in Preyer’s compositions, does not drink from the drops of water but alights on a juicy, inviting grape (estimate: €20,000–25,000).

The two paintings by Jan Adriaensz. van Staveren and Simon Luttichuys being offered were part of a German collection for at least three generations. Several works from this carefully assembled collection were entrusted to Van Ham – a sign of our long-term, trustful collaboration. Van Staveren and Luttichuys were two artists of the same age who worked during the Golden Age of Dutch painting. Both depicted the reality around them in great detail, but with distinct differences in terms of theme. Van Staveren was interested in the portrait genre. His Lizard on a Rock Promontory is an extraordinary portrait, as pictures of lizards are rare in art history (estimate: €22,000–30,000). Despite the naturalistic and perfect rendition of details, van Staveren’s main focus was probably on the symbolic meanings of the lizard, such as change, death and resurrection. Simon Luttichuys, on the other hand, dedicated his art to creating still lifes with fruits and glasses, in which he was in fact specialized. He was a major influence on his time, as his perfect manner of examining surfaces and reproducing the lustre of light on metals served as a model for many contemporary and later artists. In Still Life with Wine Glass, Gold Pyx and Fruits he demonstrates his skills by showing a relationship between light and surfaces where metals, liquids and textiles radiate a glow which the viewer’s eye follows unerringly (estimate: €30,000–35,000).

A dramatic motif, masterful authorship and a detailed provenance history: all this makes the painting Susanna and the Old Men an exciting auction highlight this Spring. The painting, which the literature on Rembrandt extensively and unanimously declared to be an autograph work by Rembrandt until the 1970s, was shown as a work by Jan Lievens at the exhibition of the artist’s work at the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick in 1979. Werner Sumowski, who was considered the leading expert on Rembrandt van Rijn’s school of painting, wrote: “In the present painting Lievens comes very close to Rembrandt. Even during his lifetime, Lievens was highly esteemed and was mentioned in the same breath as Rembrandt in contemporary sources. Their frequently similar painting style often made it difficult even for recognized experts to decide whether they were looking at a Rembrandt or a Lievens.” The nude model was probably the same as that in Rembrandt’s Andromeda painting. In the present work from 1629 with its masterfully executed lighting, Lievens focuses on the drama of attack and defence rather than Susanna’s erotic power (estimate: €40,000–60,000). The painting was previously in the possession of Empress Hermine at Greiz Castle as well as various international galleries and was part of a number of private collections.